rk narayan biography in english

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R.K. Narayan

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R.K. Narayan (born October 10, 1906, Madras [Chennai], India—died May 13, 2001, Madras) was one of the finest Indian authors of his generation writing in English.

Reared by his grandmother, Narayan completed his education in 1930 and briefly worked as a teacher before deciding to devote himself to writing. His first novel , Swami and Friends (1935), is an episodic narrative recounting the adventures of a group of schoolboys. That book and much of Narayan’s later works are set in the fictitious South Indian town of Malgudi. Narayan typically portrays the peculiarities of human relationships and the ironies of Indian daily life, in which modern urban existence clashes with ancient tradition. His style is graceful, marked by genial humour, elegance, and simplicity.

Among the best-received of Narayan’s 34 novels are The English Teacher (1945), Waiting for the Mahatma (1955), The Guide (1958), The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961), The Vendor of Sweets (1967), and A Tiger for Malgudi (1983). Narayan also wrote a number of short stories; collections include Lawley Road (1956), A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories (1970), Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985), and The Grandmother’s Tale (1993). In addition to works of nonfiction (chiefly memoirs), he also published shortened modern prose versions of two Indian epics, The Ramayana (1972) and The Mahabharata (1978).

R. K. Narayan Biography

Birthday: October 10 , 1906 ( Libra )

Born In: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

R. K. Narayan is considered as one of leading figures of early Indian literature in English. He is the one who made India accessible to the people in foreign countries—he gave unfamiliar people a window to peep into Indian culture and sensibilities. His simple and modest writing style is often compared to that of the great American author William Faulkner. Narayan came from a humble south Indian background where he was consistently encouraged to involve himself into literature. Which is why, after finishing his graduation, he decided to stay at home and write. His work involves novels like: ‘The Guide’, ‘The Financial Man’, ‘Mr. Sampath’, ‘The Dark Room’, ‘The English Teacher’, ‘A Tiger for Malgudi’, etc. Although Narayan’s contribution to the Indian literature is beyond description and the way he grabbed foreign audience’s attention for Indian literature is commendable too but he will always be remembered for the invention of Malgudi, a semi-urban fictional town in southern India where most of his stories were set. Narayan won numerous accolades for his literary work: Sahitya Akademi Award, Padma Bhushan, AC Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature, honorary membership of the American Academy of Arts and Literature, Padma Vibhushan, etc.

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Also Known As: Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami

Died At Age: 94

Born Country: India

Novelists Short Story Writers

Died on: May 13 , 2001

place of death: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Notable Alumni: Maharaja's College, Mysore

City: Chennai, India

education: Maharaja's College, Mysore

awards: Sahitya Akademi Award (1958) Padma Bhushan (1964) AC Benson Medal by the British Royal Society of Literature (1980) Padma Vibhushan (2001)

You wanted to know

What are some key themes in r. k. narayan's works.

Some key themes in R. K. Narayan's works include the clash between tradition and modernity, the complexities of human relationships, the struggles of ordinary individuals in a changing society, and the significance of everyday life and experiences.

What is the significance of Malgudi in R. K. Narayan's writings?

Malgudi serves as a fictional town created by R. K. Narayan as the setting for many of his novels and short stories. It represents a microcosm of Indian society, allowing Narayan to explore universal themes through the lives of its diverse inhabitants.

How did R. K. Narayan's writing style contribute to the popularity of his works?

R. K. Narayan's writing style, characterized by its simplicity, humor, and vivid portrayal of everyday life, resonated with readers from various backgrounds. His storytelling ability and authentic depiction of Indian culture drew widespread acclaim and contributed to the enduring popularity of his works.

What role did humor play in R. K. Narayan's storytelling?

Humor was a significant element in R. K. Narayan's storytelling, often used to highlight the idiosyncrasies of human behavior and society. His witty observations and satirical tone added depth to his narratives, making his works both entertaining and thought-provoking.

How did R. K. Narayan contribute to the development of Indian literature in English?

R. K. Narayan is regarded as a pioneering figure in Indian literature in English for his authentic portrayal of Indian life and culture. By capturing the nuances of everyday experiences and the complexities of human relationships, he helped establish a distinct voice for Indian writers in the global literary landscape.

Recommended Lists:

Narayan was known for his simple and unassuming lifestyle, often wearing a traditional Indian dhoti and kurta.

Despite being a prolific writer, Narayan did not have a formal education in literature or creative writing. He learned English on his own and started writing stories at a young age.

Narayan was a keen observer of human behavior and often drew inspiration for his characters and stories from the people he encountered in his hometown of Malgudi.

He had a great sense of humor and often infused his writing with wit and satire, making his stories both engaging and thought-provoking.

Narayan was a disciplined writer, following a strict routine of writing every morning and revising his work in the afternoons. This dedication to his craft contributed to his success as a renowned author.

See the events in life of R. K. Narayan in Chronological Order

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• R K Narayan Biography

Biography of R K Narayan

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami (RK Narayan) was a well-known Indian writer famous for his set of work and writing in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was one of the leading and famous authors of early Indian literature written in English along with two others, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.

Narayan's greatest achievement was to make India accessible to the outside world through his writing and powerful words in his literature. Narayan's biography is always centered on his friendship with Graham Greene. Because he was Narayan's mentor and close friend. He was actively involved in identifying and getting publishers for Narayan's first four books. 

In 1941, he founded his own publishing house and his works quickly found a permanent and favorite place in the bookshelves of almost all the Indian homes. When he was at the peak of his fame in his successful career, Narayan was then awarded a Padma Bhushan in 1964 and 36 years later, just a year before his death at 94, another prestigious Padma Vibhushan award in 2000. Narayan was critically ill and hospitalized with cardiovascular problems two weeks ago in Madras, the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, where he was born in 1906.

Early Life 

Narayan was born in 1906 in Madras (now renamed and known as Chennai, Tamil Nadu), British India into a normal Hindu family. He was one of eight children his parents have had and Narayan was second among the sons; his younger brother Ramachandran was an editor at Gemini Studios, and the youngest brother Laxman was a successful cartoonist. 

Narayan spent the early years of his life in Madras in the care of his grandmother and a maternal uncle and joined his parents mainly only during the vacations. At that time, India was still treated as the most important of the British empire, a colony held since 1857.

RK Narayan attended a number of schools than a usual student would as in Madras while living with his grandmother, in which the main school was the Lutheran Mission School in Purasawalkam, C.R.C. High School, and Christian College High School. Narayan was an ardent and passionate reader who grew up reading Dickens, Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Thomas Hardy.

After completing high school, Narayan failed the university entrance examination unfortunately but got to have lots of time to spend a year at home reading and writing; and then he successfully passed the final examination in 1926 and joined Maharaja College of Mysore.

RK Narayan was always found devoted and dedicated to reading whenever he got time.

Awards and Honors

Among the best works of RK Narayan among his 34 novels, The English Teacher (1945), Waiting for the Mahatma (1955), The Guide (1958), The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961), The Vendor of Sweets (1967), and A Tiger for Malgudi (1983) were the best.

His novel The Guide (1958) won him the most prestigious National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, which was his country's highest honor. Narayan received many other awards and honors including the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature, the Padma Vibhushan, and the Padma Bhushan, India's second and third highest civilian awards, and in 1994 the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest honor of India's national academy of letters. He was also once nominated to the Rajya Sabha, which is the upper house of India's parliament.

To know more about RK Narayanan, log into Vedantu and find out what the experts have to say about this legend. His creations have made him an immortal figure in Indian literature that every booklover, irrespective of age, admires.

FAQs on R K Narayan Biography

1. Who is RK Narayan?

RK Narayan was one of the most important English-language Indian fiction authors. He is widely regarded as one of India's best novelists. He created a realistic and immersive experience for his audience by bringing small-town India to them.

2. When and Where Was RK Narayan Born?

RK Narayan was born on 10 October 1906 in Madras (Chennai), Tamil Nadu, India into an Iyer Vadama Brahmin family.

3. Which Was the First Book Published by RK Narayan?

Swami and Friends was RK Narayan's first book, published in 1930. The novel was based on several incidents from his own childhood and was semi-autobiographical. It is still one of the most recommended English readers in Indian schools.

4. What is the difference between Biography and Autobiography?

A biography is often written on account of a person's whole life, which will be framed and written by someone else. On the other hand, an autobiography is also written on account of a person's life but will be written by that person himself from his own point of view. Vedantu's website has been designed to help you find both biographical and autobiographical information in many different formats through online libraries. You can refer to the material and learn about all the great people who have marked their names in history with the help of Vedantu at the comfort of your home.

5. What are the types of Biography?

There are four classic and informative types of biographies they are historical fiction, academic, fictional academic, and prophetic biography. A historical fiction type of biography is a creative account inspired by the events of a person’s life. Academic biographies are based on documented facts and noted accomplishments of a person’s life. A fictional academic biography often tries to combine the best and interesting elements of the fictional biography (entertainment with a strong theme and storyline) and the academic biography (with factual accuracy as well). And a prophetic biography begins with retelling the regular academic approach of considering all the known facts which have been already framed.

6. Why is reading a biography really important?

Biographies help us gain insight and deep knowledge into how successful people handle crises and solve complex problems in their times. They will gradually invite us into people's lives, allowing us to observe them as they battle with challenges and make important decisions at right time. This ultimately helps the reader to greater understanding and better decision making in their own lives. Not all individuals are the same everyone has their own experience and knowledge but biographies of great people who have achieved a lot can always guide you on the right path.

7. How do students benefit from reading biographies?

Biographies help students understand the history and life experiences through another person's perspective, which may encourage them to ask more questions and learn even more. Biographies often serve as a starting point for learning more about a passion at an early age which helps them in choosing their career. Basically, while reading a biography or an autobiography, you get to learn about what an individual has been through, and more often their life experiences at every stage. Since it is believed that human life and psychology are in similarity you can easily relate with those individuals and put yourself in their shoes to understand the experience better.

8. Does reading History help us in our daily life?

Knowing the past is extremely important for any society and human being to know what has happened in their past and which person has invented or created memorable and historic moments. Past gives us insights into our evolving behavior and basic character in matters of life, love, mutuality, war, diplomacy, and peace. It provides insights in-depth understanding into the processes and events of the past and interconnects them with our current life. History serves as a Warning to avoid any mistakes that have been done in the past and gives us a second chance to live our lives even better in our present.

R. K. Narayan Wiki, Age, Death, Wife, Family, Biography & More

R. K. Narayan (1966-2001) was an Indian writer and novelist. He was one of the renowned authors of the early Indian literature in English like Raja Rao and Mulk Raj Anand . He was also a short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, memoirist, and an editor. He mainly wrote fiction, non-fiction, and mythology. His first published work was a book review of the Development of Maritime Laws of 17th-Century England. His first novel was ‘Swami and Friends (1935), and his last work was Grandmother’s Tale (1923). His written works include themes like myths, tradition and modernity, ancient India, and women’s position in society. R. K. Narayan died on 13 May 2001.

Wiki/Biography

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami was born on Wednesday, 10 October 1906 ( age 94 years; at the time of death ) in Madras, British India (now, Chennai, India). While living with his grandmother, R. K. Narayan attended several schools in Madras like Lutheran Mission School in Purasawalkam, C.R.C. High School, and Christian College High School. After completing high school, Narayan could not pass the university entrance examination and spent a year at home reading and writing. In 1926, he successfully passed the examination and enrolled in the B.A. program in English at Maharaja College, Mysore. It took him four years to complete his bachelor’s degree. After his father’s death in 1937, he held a job as a school teacher for a short period of time. He was aware of the value of education and criticized the educational system that colonialism had put. In his novel ‘The English Teacher,’ he talks about the education system and stated,

This education has reduced us to a nation of morons; we were strangers to our own culture and camp followers of another culture, feeding on leavings and garbage . . . What about our own roots? . . . I am up against the system, the whole method and approach of a system of education which makes us morons, cultural morons, but efficient clerks for all your business and administration offices.”

R. K. Narayan belonged to a Tamil Brahmin family.

Parents & Siblings

His father was a school headmaster, and due to his frequent transfers in his job, R. K. Narayan was sent to his maternal grandmother, Parvati, who taught him arithmetic, mythology, and Sanskrit. His grandmother used to call him by the nickname Kunjappa. In 1937, R. K. Narayan’s father died. R. K. Narayan was the third child in a family of eight children. His youngest brother, Laxman, became a cartoonist, and Ramachandran, his younger brother, became an editor at Gemini Studios.

R. K. Narayan and his family

Wife & Children

During his visit to his sister’s house in Coimbatore, R. K. Narayan fell in love with a 15-year-old girl, Rajam. Narayan got married to her in 1934. In 1939, Rajam died of typhoid. R. K. Narayan and Rajam had a daughter named Hema.

R. K. Narayan with his wife

R. K. Narayan with his wife and daughter

R. K. Narayan with his daughter

Signature/Autograph

In 1934, R. K. Narayan became a reporter for a Madras-based paper, The Justice, which was dedicated to the rights of non-Brahmins. R. K. Narayan’s next novel was The Bachelor of Arts (1937). His third novel, The Dark Room (1938), was based on a theme of domestic disharmony. His perspective of seeing the world was unique. He once said in his book ‘The Guide”-

In a world where we are accustomed to rivalries over possession, authority, and borders, and people clashing over the issue, “Ours,” or “Mine, not yours,” it is rather strange to find two people debating whose the kingdom is not, and asserting: “Yours, not mine.”

In his book ‘Malgudi Days,’ R.K. Narayan wrote,

We are a flawed, weak species, he gently reminds us in these pages, focusing his attention, clearly and without sentiment, on those who will stoop low, those who will stop at nothing. What makes us care for such frequently pathetic characters is that they, like most of the rest of us, are strivers, driven by hopes for a slightly better life.”

• Swami and Friends (1935, Hamish Hamilton)
• The Bachelor of Arts (1937, Thomas Nelson)
• The Dark Room (1938, Eyre)
• The English Teacher (1945, Eyre)
• Mr. Sampath (1948, Eyre)
• The Financial Expert (1952, Methuen)
• Waiting for the Mahatma (1955, Methuen)
• The Guide (1958, Methuen)
• The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961, Viking)
• The Vendor of Sweets (1967, The Bodley Head)
• The Painter of Signs (1977, Heinemann)
• A Tiger for Malgudi (1983, Heinemann)
• Talkative Man (1986, Heinemann)
• The World of Nagaraj (1990, Heinemann)

Non Fiction Books

• Next Sunday (1960, Indian Thought Publications)
• My Dateless Diary (1960, Indian Thought Publications)
• My Days (1973, Viking)
• Reluctant Guru (1974, Orient Paperbacks)
• The Emerald Route (1980, Indian Thought Publications)
• A Writer’s Nightmare (1988, Penguin Books)
• A Story-Teller’s World (1989, Penguin Books)
• The Writerly Life (2001, Penguin Books India)

Mythology Books

• Gods, Demons and Others (1964, Viking)
• The Ramayana (1972, Chatto & Windus)

Short story collections

• Malgudi Days (1942, Indian Thought Publications)
• An Astrologer’s Day and Other Stories (1947, Indian Thought Publications)
• Lawley Road and Other Stories (1956, Indian Thought Publications)
• A Horse and Two Goats (1970)
• Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985)

• In 1960, R. K. Narayan won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his book The Guide (1958). Later, a film with the same name, starring Dev Anand and Waheeda Rahman, was made over this book for which R. K. Narayan received the Filmfare Award for the best story.
• In 1964, R. K. Narayan was awarded the Padma Bhushan during Republic Day.
• In 1980, he received the AC Benson Medal from the British Royal Society of Literature.
• In 1986, R. K. Narayan was honoured by Rajyotsava Prashasti from the Government of Karnataka.

R. K. Narayan with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

On 13 May 2001, he died of cardio-respiratory failure at the age of 94 in Chennai.

Facts/Trivia

• In 1982, R. K. Narayan was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Google celebrated R. K. Narayan’s 108th birthday with a doodle.

R. K. Narayan’s house (now a museum)

• In 1980, R. K. Narayan was nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
• In 1986, an Indian television series, Malgudi Days, was aired on Doordarshan; it was filmed in both English (13 episodes) and Hindi (54 episodes). The television show was based on the 1943 short story collection with the same title by R. K. Narayan .
• His short stories are often compared to Gue de Maupassant and William Faulkner for using a fictional town, humour, and compassion to showcase ordinary life.
• R. K. Narayan’s mentor and friend Graham Greene was instrumental in getting publishers for Narayan’s first four books.
• Miss Malini (1947) was the only film for which R. K. Narayan wrote the story. Sampat (1952) is an Indian satirical film, which is based on R. K. Narayan’s novel Mr. Sampat (1949).
• This National Award-winning Kannada-language film Banker Margayya (1983), was based on the novel written by R. K. Narayan titled The Financial Expert (1952).

The actual writing of a book may not take much time, but its subject and scope take time to grow and settle in. Of course you don’t regard the story or characters separately, only as a totality if I may use that slightly pompous word.” [1] India Today

• In 1968, his book The Guide was adapted into a Broadway play and was staged at Hudson Theatre. He was not happy with the film Guide, and he wrote a column in Life magazine titled The Misguided Guide.
• BBC chose Swami and Friends, the first of trilogy of novels written by R. K. Narayan (1906–2001), as one of 100 novels That Shaped Our World.
• R. K. Narayan’s first income from writing was nine rupees and twelve annas.
• His first novel, ‘Swami and Friends,’ which he wrote in 1930, was rejected by several publishers.

References [+] [−]

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R.K. Narayan Biography and Works

Table of Contents

What is the famous work of R. K. Narayan?,What is the short story of R. K. Narayan?,What is the theme of R. K. Narayan?,What is the first work of R. K. Narayan?,What is the fact about R.K. Narayan?,What did R.K. Narayan’s father do?,What is an accident story by R.K. Narayan?,What is the philosophy of R.K. Narayan?,Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami, widely known as R.K. Narayan, stands as one of the preeminent Indian writers in English during the 20th century. Born on October 10, 1906, in Madras (now Chennai), India, Narayan’s literary legacy is synonymous with his captivating portrayal of South Indian life, blending humor and poignancy. R.K. Narayan Biography and Works

Early Life:

R.K. Narayan was born into a Brahmin family in Madras, where his father, R. K. Narayanaswami, served as a school headmaster, and his mother, Gnanambal, embodied traditional values. Despite the conservative environment, Narayan’s parents fostered his early interest in literature, setting the stage for his later literary prowess.

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Narayan commenced his education at the Lutheran Mission School in Madras, where he was introduced to English literature. Later, he pursued higher education at Maharaja’s College in Mysore, where his passion for writing flourished. During this period, he began contributing short stories and articles to various local publications. R.K. Narayan Biography and Works

Emergence into Writing:

In 1930, Narayan’s literary journey took flight with the publication of a book review in “The Justice,” a Madras-based magazine. His initial works reflected simplicity and a profound understanding of human nature. The pivotal moment arrived in 1935 with the publication of his debut novel, “Swami and Friends,” introducing readers to the fictional town of Malgudi, a recurring setting in his future works. R.K. Narayan Biography and Works

Noteworthy Works:

• Swami and Friends (1935): Narayan’s debut novel explores the adventures of young Swaminathan and his friends, delving into the innocence and curiosity of childhood.
• The Bachelor of Arts (1937): This novel navigates the challenges faced by Chandran as he transitions from college to adulthood.
• The English Teacher (1945): Drawing from personal experiences, Narayan touches upon themes of love, loss, and spiritual awakening in this poignant novel.
• The Financial Expert (1952): A satirical commentary on the pursuit of wealth, this novel features Margayya manipulating the economic system for personal gain.
• The Guide (1958): Regarded as a masterpiece, “The Guide” follows the story of Raju, a tourist guide, exploring themes of love, spirituality, and self-discovery.
• Malgudi Days (1943): A collection of short stories capturing the essence of life in Malgudi, showcasing Narayan’s wit and keen observations.

Recognition and Awards:

R.K. Narayan’s literary contributions received widespread acclaim, earning him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1964 for “The Guide.” In recognition of his impact on Indian literature, he received the Padma Bhushan in 1964 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2000, two of India’s highest civilian honors.

Personal Life:

In 1934, Narayan married Rajam, with whom he had a daughter named Hema. Tragically, Rajam passed away in 1939. Despite facing personal and financial challenges, Narayan remained committed to his writing. In 1956, he married Rajam’s younger sister, Rajeswari, with whom he had another daughter, Aparna.

Later Years and Legacy:

In his later years, Narayan continued to write prolifically, with his works adapted into successful films and television series. Despite occasional criticism for not overtly addressing social issues, Narayan’s subtle and humorous commentary on Indian society resonates with readers worldwide.

R.K. Narayan passed away on May 13, 2001, leaving behind a literary legacy that transcends time. His writings, characterized by their timeless appeal, offer profound insights into the human condition and the intricacies of Indian society. Narayan’s ability to capture the essence of ordinary life with humor and compassion ensures that his works remain relevant and enjoyable for generations to come.

Major Works:

• Swami and Friends (1935): This debut novel introduces readers to the fictional town of Malgudi and follows the adventures of a young boy named Swaminathan and his group of friends. It explores the innocence and curiosity of childhood, setting the tone for Narayan’s later works.
• The Bachelor of Arts (1937): This novel delves into the challenges faced by the protagonist, Chandran, as he transitions from college life to adulthood. It addresses themes of identity, societal expectations, and personal growth.
• The English Teacher (1945): Inspired by personal experiences, this novel explores the themes of love, loss, and spiritual awakening. The protagonist, Krishna, undergoes a transformative journey after the death of his wife, highlighting Narayan’s ability to blend the mundane with the profound.
• The Financial Expert (1952): A satirical novel that follows the life of Margayya, a financial expert who manipulates the economic system for personal gain. The book provides a critical commentary on the pursuit of wealth and societal values. R.K. Narayan Biography and Works
• The Guide (1958): Considered one of Narayan’s masterpieces, this novel tells the story of Raju, a tourist guide, and explores themes of love, deception, and spiritual redemption. The narrative structure is notable for its non-linear and layered storytelling.
• Malgudi Days (1943): A collection of short stories set in the fictional town of Malgudi, each capturing the nuances of human relationships, societal norms, and everyday life. The stories showcase Narayan’s wit, humor, and keen observations.

Writing Style:

• Simplicity: Narayan’s writing is characterized by simplicity, making his works accessible to a wide audience. He eschews elaborate language in favor of a straightforward and unpretentious style, allowing readers to connect with his narratives on a personal level.
• Humor: A hallmark of Narayan’s writing is his subtle humor. He skillfully infuses wit and irony into his stories, often using humor to comment on societal norms and human behavior. This comedic touch adds depth and relatability to his works.
• Characterization: Narayan excels in creating memorable and authentic characters. His characters are often drawn from everyday life in small towns, and he endows them with distinct personalities and quirks. This attention to characterization contributes to the realism of his narratives.
• Regional Flavor: Narayan’s works vividly capture the essence of South Indian life and culture. Through detailed descriptions and cultural references, he brings the fictional town of Malgudi to life, making it a character in itself. This regional flavor adds authenticity and richness to his storytelling.
• Exploration of Human Nature: Narayan’s narratives delve into the complexities of human relationships and societal dynamics. His keen understanding of human nature allows him to create characters that resonate with readers, and he skillfully explores universal themes such as love, loss, and self-discovery.
• Subtle Social Commentary: While not overtly political, Narayan’s works offer subtle social commentary. He addresses societal norms, caste dynamics, and the impact of modernity on traditional values. His storytelling serves as a lens through which readers can reflect on broader social issues.

R.K. Narayan’s literary journey is a tapestry woven with simplicity, humor, and a profound understanding of human nature. Through the lens of Malgudi, his fictional town, Narayan painted a vivid portrait of South Indian life, capturing the nuances of everyday existence. From the innocence of childhood in “Swami and Friends” to the spiritual quest in “The Guide,” Narayan’s major works showcase a remarkable range of storytelling.

His writing style, marked by simplicity and subtle humor, made his works universally appealing. The characters he crafted, often drawn from the fabric of small-town life, came to life with authenticity and relatability. Narayan’s narratives, while deeply rooted in South Indian culture, transcended regional boundaries, earning him acclaim both in India and internationally. R.K. Narayan Biography and Works

As a literary luminary, Narayan received accolades, including the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Bhushan. His legacy endures, not only through his novels but also through the screen adaptations of his works. R.K. Narayan’s ability to blend the ordinary with the profound, coupled with his keen observations of human behavior, ensures his place as a timeless storyteller.What is the famous work of R. K. Narayan?,What is the short story of R. K. Narayan?,What is the theme of R. K. Narayan?,What is the first work of R. K. Narayan?,What is the fact about R.K. Narayan?,What did R.K. Narayan’s father do?,What is an accident story by R.K. Narayan?,What is the philosophy of R.K. Narayan?,

1. What is R.K. Narayan best known for?

R.K. Narayan is best known for his captivating portrayal of South Indian life in English literature. His major works, including “Swami and Friends,” “The Guide,” and “Malgudi Days,” showcase his keen observations, humor, and deep understanding of human nature.

2. What is the significance of Malgudi in R.K. Narayan’s works?

Malgudi, a fictional town created by R.K. Narayan, serves as the backdrop for many of his novels and short stories. It symbolizes a microcosm of Indian society, allowing Narayan to explore diverse themes such as human relationships, societal norms, and the impact of modernity on traditional values.

3. How would you describe R.K. Narayan’s writing style?

R.K. Narayan’s writing style is characterized by simplicity, humor, and a deep understanding of human nature. He uses colloquial language and subtle humor to make his works accessible to a broad audience. His storytelling is marked by authenticity, and he excels in creating memorable characters.

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R K Narayan

R K Narayan is one of the few novelists of India who enjoyed a career-long fame and honour without any disputes. His reader base as well as his critics, seldom of them you would find hostile towards him or any of his books. Written around 15 novels and several books in other genres, R K Narayan is best remembered for his novels which revolved around and evolved in Malgudi. Malgudi was a hypothetical south Indian town which Narayan developed in his novels and gave it shape as his career furthered.

Born in 1906 in Madras, he was a man of his belief. Nevertheless, he always exposed the unnecessary and no longer relevant practices in Indian society. As a novelist, he was progressive and always tried to provide ‘better than the previous’ things in his novels, and at times, he succeeded as well. His contribution to the Indian English Literature is unparalleled and subsequently, R K Narayan was awarded Padma Bhusshan and Padma Vibhushan award by the Indian government.

His career as a novelist began in 1935 with the publication of his first novel – Swami and Friends. This novel, mostly the critics claim, simply came out because of his memories and narration which involved his personal experiences and thus being an autobiographical novel to some extent. Nevertheless, this novel annunciated his arrival on the horizon of Indian writing in English. His second novel – The Bachelor of Arts, certainly better than his previous one, reinforced his place. This novel tells the story of Chandran, a fresh graduate, who is unable to find stability in his life. As a twist or say for the sake of exposing the ‘traditionally dogmatic practices’ Narayan introduces two love stories in the novel. One fails because of horoscope and another begins with horoscope at the end.

He has written over 15 novels (nearly) but he is remembered and regarded high mainly because of the novels stated below:

• The Guide (1958)
• Talkative Man (1986)
• Waiting for the Mahatma (1955)
• The English Teacher (1945)
• The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961)

His novels exhibited a kind of subtle atmosphere very much apt for the kind of fiction R K Narayan wrote. The presence of dynamic Malgudi in the backdrop added soul to his plots as well his characters were, most of the times, animated and breathing. He wrote about the life of common people and the plight that the had to face every day. Social fabric in his novels was attached and detached according to the demand of the plot. From the theme of love to the theme of independence, he wrote almost every kind of novels. Rightly so, today he is regarded as one of the three pillars of the Indian English fiction.

The place that R K Narayan occupies in Indian English literature is hailed by the critics in India as well as other countries. He set the stage open for the authors to come and display their creative skills. To conclude, he was very essential phenomenon for Indian English writing and helped us get global with ‘our say’ in fiction.

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• R.K Narayan: The One Who Created Malgudi

R.K Narayan: The One Who Created Malgudi  Blogs Home

• 14 Oct 2022

R.K. Narayan, Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami is a legendary writer of early Indian English literature. Being a writer of fiction, non-fiction and mythology, R.K. Narayan proposed a great range of pen work for his readers worldwide. His famous autobiographical trilogy of “Swami and friends”, “The Bachelor of Arts” and “The English teacher” are one of his finest pieces, even the famous fictional town of “Malgudi” was introduced in the book “Swami and friends”. His connection to his characters and highlighting of the social context got him a serious comparison with William Faulkner.

R.K. Narayan was born in a Tamil Brahmin family in Madras, colonised India. He was the second son among five others with two daughters. His father being a school headmaster, taught him in his early days. His elder brother Ramachandran became an editor at Gemini studios and his youngest brother Laxman became a cartoonist. Due to his father’s transfer to a different location for work-related reasons, he spent a good part of his childhood with his maternal grandmother, Parvati.

In 1933, Narayan fell in love with a 15-year-old girl, Rajam, whom he met while he was vacationing at his sister’s house in Coimbatore. They got married, and Narayan started working as the first Brahmin Iyer for a Madras-based paper called, The Justice, dedicated to the rights of Non-Brahmins which caused a thrill. The paper got him great contacts and a new vision for the surrounding issues. Meanwhile, the manuscript he sent to a friend at Oxford earlier got the attention of Graham Greene, who decided to get the book published. Finally, Swami and Friends was published in 1935; book was semi-autobiographical as it included incidents from Narayan’s childhood. Another recommendation of Greene led to the publishing of his second novel, ‘The Bachelor Of Arts’ in 1937, based upon his rebellious college adolescence to his cultivated adulthood. This year also led to a great loss for Narayan as he lost his father. In 1938, he published his third novel, ‘The Dark Room’, which showcased the domestic dissension of the man as the oppressor and the woman being trapped as a victim in the marriage. The following year 1939, he lost his wife, Rajam due to typhoid, which affected him deeply. His daughter Hema was too young for the loss, and Narayan never remarried his whole life. The loss of his wife brought a compelling change in his life and inspired his next novel, ‘The English Teacher.’ He mentioned this book was almost an autobiography and the emotions detailed reflected his own when he lost his wife.

He published his short story collection, ‘Malgudi Days’ in November of 1942, following the publication of ‘The English Teacher’ in 1945, and both of them turned out to be a huge success. Due to the war in 1945, he couldn’t publish from England, which made him start his own publishing company called Indian Thought Publications. This project was a huge success and is still active, managed by his granddaughter now.

The engrossed years

Narayan’s writing after The English Teacher got more imaginative and took a turn from the autobiographical tone of the earlier work. His next, ‘The Financial Expert’ is considered his masterpiece and one of the most original fiction works of 1951. The next novel, ‘Waiting for the Mahatma’ was based on the visit of Mahatma Gandhi to the fictional town of Malgudi.

1953, turned out to be a great year for Narayan’s career as his work was published in the United States of America for the first time by the Michigan State University Press. After his daughter's wedding, Narayan seemed to travel a lot while writing at least 1500 words a day even while on the road. Narayan had a daily journal which later added to his book, ‘My Dateless Diary.’ His book, ‘The Guide’ is the most representative of his writing and skills, for this book he won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1960. Narayan published another hit, ‘The Man-Eater of Malgudi’ in 1961, after which he resumed travelling. He went to Australia and U.S.A. He lectured about Indian Literature in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne for about three weeks, and the trip was funded by was Australian Writers’ Group. His success was treating him well, both literary and financially. He had a large house in Mysore, started writing for magazines and newspapers like The Hindu and The Atlantic, and drove a new Mercedes-Benz. His first mythological work was published in 1964, ‘Gods, Demons and Others’, a short story collection from Hindu epics. He published his next work in 1967, ‘The Vendor of Sweets.’ He also travelled to England this year, receiving his first honorary doctorate from the University of Leeds. He added more to his mythological work with, ‘The Ramayana’ (1972) and ‘The Mahabharata’ (1978).

Literary review

Narayan always relates with the reader when it comes to his writing. His technique contained ordinary connections and a natural element of humour. Critics compared Narayan with Chekhov due to his description of beauty and humour in tragedy. His writing tends to be descriptive rather than analytical which provides a more authentic and realistic narration. He always described the demands of society to be confusing a person’s individuality. He was very simple and realistic at capturing the elements of the situation very well on the paper

In May 2001, Narayan was hospitalised and died on the 13th of November, in Chennai at the age of 94. He won several awards and honours for his significant contribution to the literary world such as Sahitya Akademi Award, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, AC Benson Medal, and multiple nominations for the Noble Prize in Literature. He was also nominated for the upper house of the Indian Parliament for a six-year term starting in 1989 for his outstanding contribution to Indian English literature.

In mid-2015, his former home in Mysore was converted into a museum in his honour. On 8 November 2019, BBC selected his book, Swami and Friends, as part of the 100 Novels That Shaped Our World.

R.K. Narayan is one of the greatest writers of Indian Literature, contributing to the generational wealth of Indian Literature in English. He connected his readers with the surrounding world in a manner of humour yet reality. His work has been renowned worldwide and feeds those who want to see a change in society through the glass of a man who found compassionate humanism through the energy of ordinary life. Without showing the robustness of his characters he displayed the exact image of society on his pages. His work is a testament to one who wants to seek an avid range of fiction and non-fiction in the most resplendent bearing.

 Chirag Joon 

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Biography of Rk Narayan | Education, Books, Novels & Short stories

RK Narayan (Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami) was a well-known Indian writer and novelist. He was famous for his work set in the Malgudi. During his life span, he has written various novels, short stories, Non-fiction, essays, and travelogues. With the thought to give students and children knowledge about RK Narayan and its contribution to society, we are writing the Biography of RK Narayan. This blog post includes detailed information about Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanswami, his birth, early life, education, career, married life, writings, death, and legacy.

Birth and Early Life

RK Narayan was born in Madras(Chennai), India in a Tamil Brahmin family on 10th October 1906 to R.V. Krishnaswami Iyer and Gnana Iyer. Mr. R.V. Krishnaswami Iyer was the headmaster of a school in Mysore, and his mother Gnana Iyer was a housewife. He had 7 siblings(5 brothers and 2 sisters).

During his early childhood, he lived in Madras and he was admission to a succession of schools. Because of his shy and introverted nature, he didn’t make friends and kept himself busy in reading the books of Charles Dickens, P.G. Wodehouse, and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Because of frequent job transfer of his father. He spent many years during his childhood at her maternal home, under the care of his maternal grandmother, Parvati.

At the age of 12 years , Narayan’s family shifted to Mysore because of his father’s job. In Mysore he took admission in the Maharaja’s College in English Literature and in 1928, He graduated with a degree in English literature.

After graduating from Maharaja College, he worked as a teacher for a short period before deciding to become a writer.

He gave the wings to his passion for writing by continuous writing.

He wrote stories as well as long articles on different topics for different kinds of magazines. To make writing his career, he continued his writing skills

Married life

RK Narayan got married twice. He got married to Rajam in 1934. They blessed with a baby girl named Hema. But unfortunately his wife Rajam died in 1939.

So, in 1954, he got married again to Shantha. But with that marriage, he had no child.

In 1935, after marriage, RK Narayan wrote his first novel “Swami and Friends”. It was his critical and commercial success. After that he continued writing and wrote various novels such as The Bachelor of Arts (1937), The Dark Room (1938), and The English Teacher (1945). Apart from the novels, he wrote the guide and it was published in 1958. The guide was applauded by everyone and considered one of best of his writings. The Guide won India’s highest literary award known as Sahitya Akademi Award.

RK Narayan continued writing throughout his career life and wrote several books.

Because his writings were applauded and demanded by people over the globe. So, to fulfilled the demand of readers, his writings were translated into various languages.

Awards and Honors

Rk Narayan was a well-known Indian author. In his life, he received many awards. Here is a list of some of the most notable awards and honors:

• In 1960, for his novel “The Guide” He received Sahitya Akademi Award.
• In 1964, He received, Padma Bhushan.
• In 1980 from the Royal Society of Literature, He received AC Benson Medal.
• In 1982, He received honor as a Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
• From 1989 to 1998, He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
• In 1994, He got Sahitya Akademi Fellowship.
• In 2000, He received Padma Vibhushan.
• Apart from these, he was also nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature many times.

R.K.Narayan’s Writings (Novels/Short stories)

During his life, Narayan wrote more than 20 novels, 100 short stories, travelogues and essays.

• Swami and Friends (1935)
• The Bachelor of Arts (1937)
• The Dark Room (1938)
• The English Teacher (1945)
• Mr. Sampath (1948)
• The Financial Expert (1952)
• Waiting for the Mahatma (1955)
• The Guide (1958)
• The Maneater of Malgudi (1961)
• The Vendor of Sweets (1967)
• Talkative Man (1986)
• The World of Nagaraj (1990)
• Grandmother’s Tale (1992)

Short Stories:

• Malgudi Days (1942)
• An Astrologer’s Day and Other Stories (1947)
• Lawley Road and Other Stories (1956)
• A Horse and Two Goats (1970)
• Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985)
• The Grandmother’s Tale and Selected Stories (1994)

On 13th May, 2001, R.K Narayan died at the age of 94 years, in Chennai, India. Because of his huge contribution to society,he is considered one of the most valuable Indian writers of the 20th century. His death was not only mourned by Indians but also the people over the globe.

The writings of RK Narayan has been praised by not only Indian readers but foreigners too.

His fictional town Malgudi has now become the famous tourist destination. Even various films and television shows has adapted his writings. He captured the life of Indian in his workings so he has become a role model for aspiring writers.

About The Author

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R. K. Narayan

R. k. narayan’s biography, early writing, first novel.

For instance, it was the first work in which Narayan set his story in the fictive town of Malgudi.

Local paper

Publication of first novel, narayan’s rising success.

After the first book, Greene began to counsel Narayan about how to write to gain the attention of the English audience. He also advised him to shorten his name according to the demand of English readers.

Effect of Depression

Busy career, beginning of mythological career, end of career.

Furthermore, in 1980, Narayan became a part of the Indian parliament and served in education for 6 years. From this time till death, he wrote abundantly. His final book was “Grandmother’s Tale”, a novella based upon Narayan’s childhood recollection of his grandmother’s tale about his great-grandmother. 

R. K. Narayan’s Writing Style

Natural and unpretentious, compassionate representations, depiction of true indian society, short stories style, descriptive and objective style.

This gives the narrative a realistic and genuine representation. His work has a unique capability to intertwine actions and characters through his attitude towards the ways of life.

Themes in R. K. Narayan’s Writings

Misery and suffering of man, animal sympathy.

In his works, Narayan exhibits the intricacies of animal life and shows his understanding of their emotions in beautifully created stories.

Children Innocence and Mischiefs

Unemployment issues.

This condition can be related to most of the modern men in the growing competitive world.

Achievements

Works of r. k. narayan.

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R.K. Narayan

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(1906–2001). R.K. Narayan was one of the best known and most esteemed Indians writing in English. He was essentially a storyteller and he did not blaze new trails in fiction writing, but he tried to convey a sense of the land and the people he knew so well. He was sometimes compared to the United States writer William Faulkner , who also drew elaborate stories out of his own regional experience.

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Ayyar Narayanswami was born in Madras, India, on Oct. 10, 1906. He was raised by his grandmother. He studied at Maharajah College in Mysore, which is now the University of Mysore, and graduated from there in 1930. Narayan worked as a teacher, but he left that profession to write full-time. He published his first novel, Swami and Friends , in 1935. It told of a group of boys in the fictional southern Indian town of Malgudi. The town was the setting for many of Narayan’s subsequent works. His friend Graham Greene recommended his work to a publisher, and he suggested that the author shorten his name to R.K. Narayan at the time that Swami and Friends was published.

Narayan’s works included novels, short-story collections, essays, and translations of Indian epics. His richly painted novels included The English Teacher (1945), which explored the pain Narayan experienced after the death of his young wife; Waiting for the Mahatma (1955); The Guide (1958); The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961); Gods, Demons, and Others (1965); The Vendor of Sweets (1967); A Tiger for Malgudi (1983); Talkative Man (1986); The World of Nagaraj (1990); and The Grandmother’s Tale (1995). His best-known story collections included Lawley Road (1956); A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories (1970); Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985); and A Storyteller’s World (1989). Many of the short stories were originally written for the Madras newspaper The Hindu . Narayan was praised for his prose versions of The Ramayana (1972) and The Mahabharata (1978). In 1974 he published My Days: A Memoir (1974).

Malgudi, the town Narayan invented and explored in his novels, became a part of Indian literary history. Readers felt as if they knew the town. It had strong similarities to the Madras of Narayan’s childhood and the Mysore of his later years. Themes of tradition versus individuality also pervaded Narayan’s work, along with the kinds of ironies people faced in their daily lives in India. Modern urban existence often did not seem natural in a life of tradition, but Narayan’s characters often lived simultaneously in the present and the past. His style was straightforward and graceful, with a modest humor and a marked elegance.

Narayan did not consider himself to be a devout Hindu, but spirituality was present in the lives of his characters. The author’s works were translated into every European language as well as Hebrew. His prose was flavorful and quite distinct from American or British English. Most Indian writers of his stature traveled abroad for long periods of time to write, lecture, and teach, but Narayan did not. On a rare visit to a foreign country, the United States, Narayan wrote an essay that angered some expatriate Indians living there. “My America” left the impression that Indian citizens who left India to build a life in the United States had abandoned the beauty, simplicity, and spirituality of their homeland.

His awards included the national prize of the Indian literary academy, Sahitya Akademi, in 1958 for The Guide . In 1964 Narayan received the Padma Bhushan, a coveted Indian award for distinguished service to literature. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Several seats in India’s Parliament were reserved for those who had achieved distinction in the arts, sciences, or literature. In 1989 Narayan was named to one of those seats in the Council of States (Rajya Sabha), the nonelective house of Parliament in India. He died on May 13, 2001, in Chennai, India.

Additional Reading

Badal, R.K. R.K. Narayan: A Study (Prakash Book Depot, 1976). Hariprasanna, A. The World of Malgudi, (Prestige, 1994). Pontes, Hilda. R.K. Narayan (Concept, 1983). Ram, Susan, and Ram, N. R.K. Narayan: Early Years 1906–1945 (Penguin, 1996). Sharan, N.N. A Critical Study of the Novels of R.K. Narayan (Classical Pub., 1993).

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R K Narayan Biography

Table of Contents

R K Narayan Biography in English

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami, known as RK Narayan , was a renowned Indian writer celebrated for his body of work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was among the prominent early Indian authors who wrote in English, alongside Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.

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Narayan’s significant accomplishment was introducing India to the world through his compelling literature. His biography often highlights his close friendship with Graham Greene, who served as his mentor and helped him secure publishers for his first four books. In 1941, Narayan established his own publishing company, and his books became favorites in Indian households.

During the pinnacle of R K Narayan’s successful career, R K Narayan received the Padma Bhushan award in 1964 and, 36 years later, the prestigious Padma Vibhushan in 2000, just a year before his passing at 94 age. R K Narayan, who was born in 1906 in Madras, Tamil Nadu, fell critically ill due to cardiovascular problems and he was hospitalized two weeks before his demise.

R K Narayan Early Life

R K Narayan was born in 1906 in Madras (now known as Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) to a regular Hindu family. He was one of eight children, the second among the sons. R K Narayan younger brother Ramachandran worked as an editor at Gemini Studios, and the youngest brother, Laxman, had a successful career as a cartoonist.

During his early years, R K Narayan mostly lived in Madras with his grandmother and maternal uncle, reuniting with his parents only during holidays. At that time, India was still under British rule, as it had been since 1857.

R K Narayan Education

R K Narayan attended several schools, including the C.R.C. High School, Christian College High School in Madras, and Lutheran Mission School in Purasawalkam where he lived with his grandmother. R K Narayan is an avid reader and enjoyed books by authors like Wodehouse, Dickens, Thomas Hardy and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Although he didn’t pass the university entrance exam after high school, Narayan had a year at home to read and write before successfully passing the final exam in 1926. He then enrolled at Maharaja College of Mysore. Throughout his life, he remained devoted to reading whenever he had the opportunity.

R K Narayan Parents

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami, known as RK Narayan parents played an important role in his entire life. His father, Krishnaswami Iyer, was a schoolteacher, and his mother, Gnanambal, was a housewife. They lived in Madras, India.

R K Narayan parents were supportive of his education, and they also encouraged his love for reading and writing from a young age. They recognized his passion for books and storytelling. His father, being a teacher, likely influenced Narayan’s interest in literature and language.

While Narayan’s parents provided a nurturing environment for his intellectual pursuits, they also faced challenges. The family had financial struggles at times, which influenced Narayan’s own experiences and his portrayal of economic themes in his novels.

Despite their modest means, R K Narayan parents instilled in him the values of hard work, perseverance, and the importance of education. These values became evident in his writings and as well as characters, who often grappled with life’s challenges and choices.

In summary, R K Narayan’s parents were a source of inspiration and support in his life, shaping his love for literature and guiding him towards becoming one of India’s most renowned authors.

R K Narayan Awards and Honors

Among RK Narayan’s 34 novels , notable works consists of “Waiting for the Mahatma” (1955), “The English Teacher” (1945), “The Guide” (1958), “The Vendor of Sweets” (1967), “The Man-Eater of Malgudi” (1961), and “A Tiger for Malgudi” (1983).

RK Narayan novel “The Guide” (1958) earned “ prestigious National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy “, “ the highest literary honor in his country “. RK Narayan also received other accolades, such as the Padma Vibhushan, AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature, and the Padma Bhushan, which are among India’s top civilian awards. In 1994, he was honored with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the most esteemed recognition from India’s national academy of letters. Additionally, he was once nominated to the Rajya Sabha, India’s upper parliamentary house.

R K Narayan Biography Summary

FAQs on R K Narayan Biography

Why is rk narayan so famous.

RK Narayan is famous for his captivating storytelling and his portrayal of everyday Indian life in his novels.

What is a short biography about RK Narayan?

RK Narayan, born in 1906 in Chennai, was a renowned Indian author known for his Malgudi series of novels and short stories.

What is the most famous work of RK Narayan?

The most famous work of RK Narayan is Swami and Friends, the first novel in the Malgudi series.

Who is the first English writer in India?

The first English writer in India is often attributed to be Raja Ram Mohan Roy, known for his advocacy of social reform and literature in the early 19th century.

What we learn from R. K. Narayan?

From RK Narayan's works, we learn about the complexities of human relationships, the humor in everyday life, and the cultural nuances of South India.

What inspired R. K. Narayan to write?

RK Narayan was inspired to write by his deep love for literature and his observations of the people and culture of India.

What are the qualities of R. K. Narayan?

The qualities of RK Narayan's writing include wit, humor, vivid character portrayal, and a deep understanding of human nature.

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R. K. Narayan (1906-2001)

When R. K. Narayan died on 13 May 2001 at the age of ninety-four, he left behind a body of work that will continue to impress generations of readers. Surveying Narayan's work, one is struck by the breadth and depth of his achievement. His first novel,  Swami and Friends: A Novel of Malgudi , was published in 1935, and at the time of his death almost sixty-six years later, Narayan was still writing. In between, he had published novels, short stories, travel books, essays, and retellings of Indian epics, not to mention the articles he had produced as a journalist in his early years. From the 1930s to the early 1990s, when old age finally slowed him down, he managed to write at least three books every decade.

Chronologically, Narayan's fiction takes up the major events of Indian history, including British rule, World War II, the independence movement and the last days of the Raj, Gandhism as a phenomenon, the anxieties and traumas of nation-building, cross-cultural encounters after independence, and ideological debates between tradition and modernity. His characters include schoolboys, college students, teachers, housewives, small tradesmen, lawyers, rogues turned sadhus, taxidermists, dancers, feminists, foreigners in India, and even a tiger who has his own story to tell. Thematically, Narayan deals with such topics as the rites of passage, the education of a young man, a woman's place, death and life, sainthood, destiny and free will, and passivity versus activism. Stylistically, his technique ranges from simple, almost naive, realism to subtle irony. Not averse to using traditional myths and weaving fables into his stories of ordinary people, he is also able to write full-length allegories that manage to be realistic as well and that rely on experiments with narrative perspectives.

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayan was born on 10 October 1906 in his grandfather's home in Madras, the son of R. V. Krishnaswami Iyer and Gnana Iyer. His father was a schoolteacher in Mysore. Narayan spent the early years of his life in Madras in the care of his grandmother and a maternal uncle, joining his parents mainly during vacations. In  My Days: A Memoir  (1974), the novelist notes that his grandmother was a major influence on his life and storytelling. The maternal uncle, who published a literary journal in Tamil, also played a part in the growth of the novelist's mind in these years.

Narayan first went to school in Madras. In 1922 he was shifted to the school in Mysore where his father was the headmaster.  My Days  indicates that Narayan was an indifferent student but an avid reader in his childhood. He failed the school entrance examination twice and also was unable to get through college easily. Eventually he graduated from Maharaja College of Mysore with a B.A. degree in 1930.

Narayan began to write seriously in the 1920s. In  R. K. Narayan: The Early Years: 1906-1945  (1996), his biographers Susan Ram and N. Ram describe his intense desire to see his name in print and the hard work he did, not only reading major English writers and periodicals but also going through books on how to sell one's manuscripts. He soon got accustomed to receiving rejection slips from publishers and newspaper editors; however, Narayan continued to harbor hopes of making a living as a writer, until his father persuaded him to take up a teaching position in a school. The experience proved distasteful to him, and he soon resumed corresponding with English publishers for his manuscripts. He eventually succeeded in getting an article on the Indian cinema published in the  Madras Mail  in July 1930.

In his memoir, Narayan recalls that he was wandering the streets of Mysore one day at this time of his life when Malgudi, the setting of most of his fiction, just seemed to "hurl" into his mind while he was thinking of a name for a railway station for one of his works. Along with the station, he had a vision then of a character called Swaminathan. He thus began his first novel,  Swami and Friends , completing it two years later. Meanwhile, he managed to get a short story titled "A Night in a Rest House" published in  The Indian Review  (August 1932). What was even more satisfying was seeing a short satirical piece that he wrote called "How to Write an Indian Novel" appear in  Punch  on 27 September 1933.

That year he also fell in love with a fifteen-year-old girl named Rajam Iyer, whom he spotted as she was waiting to fill water in a brass vessel from a street tap. Too shy to approach her, he persuaded his father to send a proposal of marriage to her father. However, their horoscopes did not match as required by religious custom. Not deterred by this obstacle, Narayan had his father find a way around it. He married Rajam on 1 July 1934. Around this time, he also became the Mysore reporter of a newspaper called  The Justice.

When Narayan had finished  Swami and Friends  in 1932, the odds against an Indian publishing English fiction in England were still high. Conscious that his book would not find a publisher in his country and failing to get a positive response from the English publishers to whom he had sent the manuscript, sometime in 1934 Narayan contacted his friend Krishna Raghavendra Putra, who was then studying at Oxford. When Putra at first had no luck getting publishers to respond, Narayan told his friend to throw the manuscript into the Thames. Instead, Putra persuaded the famous English novelist Graham Greene, who was already attempting to get some of Narayan's short stories published in English magazines, to take a look at  Swami and Friends . Greene was so impressed that he recommended the book to the publisher Hamish Hamilton. After suggesting a few changes, including the title (originally "Swami, the Tate"), Hamilton agreed to publish the novel. It appeared in October 1935, and Malgudi was launched as a fictional place to be mentioned almost in the same breath as Thomas Hardy's Wessex, William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, or Gabriel García Márquez 's Macondo.

Swami and Friends  is a fictional account of Narayan's childhood. Although modeled on Mysore, Malgudi could be any midsize provincial town in the Indian subcontinent progressing through the twentieth century. Swaminathan, the titular character, grows up against the backdrop of colonial rule and the resistance movement that had already gained momentum throughout the subcontinent. His relationships with schoolmates and family members are rendered with great charm and humor in the novel. The deftness with which Narayan presents the mind of a young boy moving toward adolescence and the skill with which the novelist introduces readers to life in a provincial town make the novel noteworthy.

Typical of the few reviews that greeted the novel in England is the comment of the reviewer of the  Morning Post  (3 December 1935) that  Swami and Friends  is "a portrait of childhood pure and simple." The review in the  Daily Mail  (7 November 1935) was in the same vein: the work was "an entirely delightful story about life in an Indian school with equally vivid glimpses of life in Indian homes." But Narayan's biographers point out that although the reviews of the book were almost all favorable, the book was a failure if judged on the basis of its sales and the fact that Hamish Hamilton declined to be Narayan's publisher in the future.

Nevertheless, Narayan was buoyed by the fact that he had published a book in England and by the laudatory reviews. He began work on his second novel,  The Bachelor of Arts  (1937), as soon as the first one had been accepted for publication. While he was working on it, his wife gave birth to the couple's only child, a girl called Hema, in February 1936. The novel was completed by March of that year. Narayan sent the manuscript to Greene along with a collection of short stories. Greene was once again enthusiastic and found a literary agent for Narayan in the London firm of Pearn, Hollinger, and Higham. The novel was chosen for publication by Thomas Nelson and Sons and came out in March 1937.

The Bachelor of Arts  is a fictional rendering of another phase of the writer's life. The protagonist, Chandran, is an undergraduate student in a missionary college. The resistance movement against the British presence seems to have intensified in the novel, and there is a lot of talk about political reforms, much anticolonial rhetoric, and ideas about the future course of Indian history aired by a few of the characters. However, the main focus of the novel is again on the protagonist's emotional growth, this time from adolescence to manhood. In the first part of the novel Chandran's relationships with friends and family members as well as his teachers are presented endearingly. In the middle part of the book Narayan depicts Chandran in love with a girl called Malathi. He feels intensely for her even though he has only seen her from a distance, but he becomes obsessive about her to the point that he clashes with his parents, who initially will not allow him to marry the girl because of her father's social standing. Even after they relent, he comes across another obstacle that he fails to overcome: the horoscopes of Chandran and Malathi do not match, and so the marriage cannot take place. In the final part of the novel, the frustrated Chandran leaves Malgudi and becomes for some time a mendicant, opting for the life of a holy man to assuage his grief. But he eventually realizes that he has made the wrong decision by deserting his family and has been guilty of self-deception in thinking that he could be a holy man. The chastened Chandran returns to his parents and is finally ready to settle down and marry a girl of their choosing.

The Bachelor of Arts  was more widely reviewed than  Swami and Friends , and the critics were as appreciative of the book as the reviewers of the first novel had been. The novel came with an enthusiastic introduction by Greene, who compared the Indian writer to Anton Chekhov. The combination of favorable reviews and Greene's endorsement meant that the novel did somewhat better in terms of sales than the previous one, but it still fell far short of being a success in the literary marketplace.

Narayan began work on his third novel,  The Dark Room  (1938), soon after the second was in print. He was able to send the typescript to Greene by October 1937. Greene was once more positive in his response to the book. Because the publishing house of Nelson declined to publish the new work, Narayan's agent had to locate a new publisher for him and found one in Macmillan in 1938.

The Dark Room  shows Narayan moving away from autobiographical fiction. It is also unusual in Narayan's canon because it has a female protagonist. The novel has an almost tragic quality as it portrays the unfulfilled life of Savitri, a woman married to an uncaring but rich husband. In  My Days , Narayan explains the frame of mind that led him to write  The Dark Room:

I was somehow obsessed with a philosophy of woman as opposed to man, her constant oppressor. This must have been an early testament of the "Woman's Lib" movement. Man assigned her a secondary place and kept her there with such subtlety and cunning that she herself began to lose all notion of her independence, her individuality, stature, and strength. A wife in an orthodox milieu of Indian society was an ideal victim of such circumstances. My novel dealt with her, with this philosophy broadly in the background.

Deeply unhappy after fifteen years of married life, and because she finds out that her husband was having an affair with an employee in his office, Savitri decides to drown herself in the river. But a locksmith-thief who takes her to his home prevents her from taking her life. She then finds employment in the village temple, but the priest is a disagreeable character, and she feels totally depressed about staying without her children. In the end, therefore, she returns to her home and to the dark room that Fate seems to have set aside for her so that she could resume the role of Savitri--the Hindu archetype of the long-suffering, all-sacrificing wife.

Like the previous novels,  The Dark Room  was a success with the English critics when it was published. Typical of the laudatory reviews was John Brophy's comment in the  Daily Telegraph  (4 November 1938) that it was "a short, poignant, delicately shaped and finished novel . . . entirely convincing and charming in its reticent sympathy." In India, too, most critics praised the novel, as they had his first two books. The critic K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, for example, found it to be a carefully and sensitively done portrait of middle-class South Indian society and compared Savitri to the heroine of Henrik Ibsen's  A Doll's House  (1879), though he concluded Narayan's presentation of Savitri is not a match for the Norwegian dramatist's portrait of Nora. Some Indian reviewers, however, were critical of Narayan's depiction of an Indian marriage, perhaps because, as his biographers indicate, the theme of the mistreated wife was bold for its period.

This novel did as poorly in terms of sales as the first two. Narayan was thus happy to find a regular outlet for his short fiction in the Madras daily,  The Hindu.  He also received a commission from the Mysore government to write a book on the state, and he researched extensively to write  Mysore  (1939), a travel narrative interspersed with historical events. Even though he received little money for this project, it allowed him to know Mysore even more intimately.

In June 1939 Narayan entered the darkest period of his life: five years into his marriage, his wife died after a short illness of what was probably typhoid. Overwhelmed with grief, he stopped writing for a while and withdrew into himself. He finally managed to get out of his depression, partly because he had to look after his daughter, but also because he felt that he had succeeded in renewing contact with Rajam through séance sessions. But although he slowly resumed normal activities, the outbreak of World War II impeded literary activity. Also, because Greene became inaccessible then, owing to his involvement in the war effort, Narayan found paths to publishing doubly difficult.

Narayan managed to sustain himself in this difficult period through his journalism and by giving talks on Madras radio. In 1941 he found a further outlet for his work and another vocation when he became the editor of a journal called  Indian Thought.  Although the periodical proved to be short-lived, the move was important for Narayan's career because it led him ultimately to publish his works in India through his own imprint, Indian Thought Publications. In the first half of the 1940s, three collections of his short stories as well as  Swami and Friends  and the travelogue  Mysore  came out in low-priced editions under this imprint. In the process, Narayan became one of the pioneers in publishing South Asian writing in English.

By 1944 Narayan had finished writing his fourth and most autobiographical novel,  The English Teacher  (1945). This novel is about Krishna, who teaches English in the missionary college that Chandran had graduated from and who vacillates between writing in English and Tamil. It is also a tale about Krishna's family life and bereavement after the death of his wife. Despite their different protagonists,  Swami and Friends ,  The Bachelor of Arts , and  The English Teacher  can be read together to present the story of the novelist as a boy, a young man, and an adult. The autobiographical connections can be easily made by anyone who has read Narayan's memoir,  My Days , even though Narayan inevitably fictionalized his experiences throughout the novels.

The English Teacher  can be divided into two parts. The first half of the novel depicts Krishna's delight in his personal life and the satisfaction he derives from his marriage to Susila and the birth of his daughter. The second half presents his initial sense of shock and overwhelming grief at the sudden death of his wife and his efforts to reconcile himself to her loss by attempting spiritual communion with her. The movement of the novel is from bliss to grief to an affirmation of love that can transcend death. Near the end, the protagonist offers a bleakly cyclical vision of life:

Wife, children, brothers, parents, friends. . . . We come together only to go apart again. It is one continuous movement. They move away from us as we move away from them. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle and misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest the law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life.

However, the novel concludes with Krishna feeling that he had united with Susila in a mystic moment.

Of Narayan's early novels,  The English Teacher  was easily the most popular. It was widely praised and sold well in England. Writing in the Glasgow  Evening News  (29 October 1945), Compton Mackenzie declared it to be "an exquisite experience." A review in  The Spectator  (12 October 1945) found the novel to be "quite out of the ordinary run." It was the first Narayan novel to be published in the United States: Michigan State College Press brought it out as  Grateful to Life and Death  in 1953. After the success of this work, Narayan found it much easier to get publishers for his works, and his reputation in the West as well as in India began to grow steadily.

The English Teacher  closed one phase of Narayan's career, since it is the last of his novels that depended mostly on the writer's life as the chief source of the narrative. In the next phase of his work as a novelist, he broadened his vision to depict individuals from all parts of society and convey the comic aspects of life as well as its tragic, heartrending moments. Having come to terms with the death of his wife and having achieved a measure of financial stability, he settled into a routine of writing, parenting, and taking the occasional trip out of Mysore. He built his own house in 1948 and saw his daughter get married in 1956. That year he was in the United States for an extended period of time and records his travels there in  My Dateless Diary: An American Journey  (1960). The critic William Walsh quotes Narayan as saying in 1974 that by then his life "had fallen firmly into a professional pattern: books, agents, contracts, and plenty of letter writing" in addition to visiting his daughter and grandchildren, who lived a hundred miles away.

After  The English Teacher , Narayan began to draw on his contacts with people in the outside world for his novels. He also attempted to enrich his presentation of individuals, as he had done before with Savitri in  The Dark Room , by searching for character archetypes in the Hindu holy books. As he observes in his essay "English in India," reprinted in  A Story-Teller's World  (1989), it was necessary to look "at the gods, demons, sages, and kings of our mythology and epics, not as some remote concoctions but as types and symbols, possessing psychological validity even when seen against the contemporary background." Narayan was ready to embark on a major fictional phase of his career, in which he went beyond autobiography and combined his experience of people and places with the founding myths of his nation as well as his thoughts about an India coping with the dawning of independence.

Mr. Sampath  (1949), the first novel that Narayan wrote after India's independence, combines his knowledge of the motion-picture world (derived from a stint as a scriptwriter in the late 1940s) with his newfound interest in Indian myths. The novel is an ambitious attempt to represent Malgudi in the final years of British rule and to connect it with a mythical period of Indian history, arriving at a complex perspective on successive waves of colonization. The protagonist, Srinivas, is a rather confused but likable journalist who turns to scriptwriting for a movie on the god Shiva, the god's love for Parvithi, and his encounter with Kama, the god of love. But Srinivas's bid to come up with a script that would do justice to the mythical tale fails, apparently because the ancient tales cannot be presented in the contemporary world except in an adulterated form. The quotidian, too, constantly diverts Srinivas from the mythical past. In a vision, Srinivas learns the essential lesson about the perspective to be taken on what was happening in the country: "Dynasties rose and fell. Palaces and mansions appeared and disappeared. The entire country went down under the fire and sword of the invader. . . . But it always had its rebirth and growth." In other words, Indian history existed in a state of flux, and change was inevitable, as was the resilience of India and Indians.

The titular character is an egotistical, domineering, and amoral printer with whom Srinivas has to work to bring out his journal. Sampath is the one who leads Srinivas away from journalism to the movie industry. But Sampath's energy and egotism as well as lack of scruples create a mess that is further complicated by the unstable studio artist Ravi's passion for the actress Shanti, who has an affair with Sampath. In his vitality as well as selfishness, Sampath becomes a forerunner of other Narayan characters who disrupt social life because of their egotism and indifference to others or the norms of society. He thus stands in contrast with Srinivas, who, as the critic A. Hariprasana observes, "realizes that he cannot achieve self-identity in isolation" and learns to value the importance of becoming involved "in the web of human relationships" and of restraint and self-knowledge as precursors to the coming of wisdom.

The Financial Expert  (1952), Narayan's next novel, uses Hindu myths creatively. The book is a realistic novel of Malgudi in the 1930s and early 1940s as well as an effective fable. Margayya, its protagonist, has acquired a fortune by publishing a quasi-pornographic book whose rights he had purchased for a paltry sum from the eccentric Dr. Pal, and he continues to raise money through questionable means. But he forgets the injunction of a priest who had cautioned him that one cannot appease Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, and Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, at the same time. Margayya tries to buy his son, Balu, an education by making himself the head of the school board and by neutralizing the fiercest teacher of the school. The result, however, is that Balu ends up a totally spoiled individual, indifferent to education, work, or the wife Margayya chooses for him.

Margayya discovers thus that all his wealth does not bring happiness either to him or to his wife and only corrupts his son. Narayan's point in the novel is a simple but profound one: true riches can never accrue when one makes money into a god or pursues dubious paths to wealth. At the conclusion of the novel, Margayya has lost all the wealth he had acquired from his financial shenanigans, but in the process he has learned that money is not everything. When he had wealth, he lacked enlightenment; when he loses everything he has acquired illicitly, he comes closer to self-knowledge. The novel ends as it begins, with Margayya ready to resume his old profession of adviser to peasants seeking help; but he appears to have learned his lesson and seems ready to start again in life.

The Financial Expert shows Narayan the novelist at his best in the way he handles the central theme of the vanity of human wishes, in his deft manipulation of events and structuring of the events in Margayya's life, and in the portrait of the central character, who is deeply flawed but also all too human and thus capable of retaining the reader's sympathy. The novel is memorable too for the portraits of Dr. Pal, the archetypal confidence man; Meenakshi, Margayya's long-suffering wife; and Balu, his prodigal son. Margayya's rise and fall take place against a backdrop of a world full of poverty, corruption, red tape, and the opportunism displayed by cynical businessmen and officials in wartime India. Narayan manages to be serious and comic throughout the novel; he also alternates details of everyday life in Malgudi with moments when readers get to view the workings of Margayya's mind. The critic William Walsh writes that the novel "has an intricate and silken organization, a scheme of composition holding everything together in a vibrant and balanced union."

Narayan followed  The Financial Expert  with his most political novel:  Waiting for the Mahatma  (1955). Written eight years after India's independence and the death of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, this work portrays in considerable detail the years leading to the partition of India. It is something of a postmortem on the roles played by Gandhi and his followers in the independence struggle and the way in which India had become vulnerable afterward because many Indians had not taken Gandhi's message of nonviolence and communal harmony to heart. Sriram, the central character, joins the freedom movement not because of his devotion to Gandhi but because of his passion for the Gandhian activist Bharati. Nevertheless, he becomes involved in almost all the major events leading to Indian independence and even goes to jail for taking part in a terrorist movement aimed at driving the British from India.

Narayan suggests through this novel that the bloodshed and divisiveness that accompanied the partition of India was inevitable, because people driven by personal passions and self-interest had cast the great leader's message aside. In the novel, except for Bharati, no one appears to be in the freedom struggle for love of India or seems inclined to follow Gandhi's teachings faithfully. The consequence is that post-independence India is, if anything, in worse condition than it was when the British had left it, for it has become a land full of religious riots, hunger, and unscrupulous politicians like the unprincipled Jagadish, a former terrorist who is now thriving financially. The novel concludes with Gandhi's assassination, although the great man blesses Sriram's marriage to Bharati before he is shot, suggesting that perhaps the couple will be able to keep Gandhi's spirit alive despite the many who have deviated from his philosophy and idealism.

Perhaps Narayan's most famous novel is his subsequent one,  The Guide  (1958), a work he wrote while he was in Berkeley, California, during his visit to America in 1958. It is the story of Raju, a scamp who ends up being perceived as a savior by many people. When the novel begins, he has just been released from jail. He wanders into a small town, where he finds Velan, a villager who is soon convinced that he has confronted a holy man and makes himself Raju's disciple. Soon after the meeting, Raju tries to dissuade Velan from hero worship by telling him the story of his life. While Raju relates to Velan his progress--from a wide-eyed child to the owner of a railway stall, a tourist guide, the lover and impresario of the classical dancer Rosie, and finally a jailbird--the narrator punctuates Raju's story by showing his dealings with Velan and the villagers who embrace him as a spiritual guide capable of leading the village out of a drought through a penitential fast. Raju's purpose in telling his story to Velan is to demystify his spiritual powers and to emphasize his shady past. Velan, however, is unmoved by the story and continues to see Raju as a guru. After Raju concludes his narrative, the omniscient narrator takes sole charge of the narration duties. The conclusion shows a Raju who may or may not be at the point of achieving transcendence.

Characteristically, Narayan interlaces the story of Raju with frequent references to Hindu theology.  The Guide  sets out to compare Raju's progress to that of Devaka, a man from India's legendary past, whose story Raju's mother used to tell him before the child used to doze off, so that he never could come to learn the ending, and so that as an adult, he could only remember that Devaka was "a hero, saint, or something of the kind." Also, Raju's excessive lust for sex and wealth and his taste for a life of luxury are precisely the sins Hindu metaphysical tradition cautions against, because giving in to such desires means forgetting that the world is  maya  (an illusion) and losing sight of the belief that a man must transcend this world by showing  bhakti  (true devotion).

The Guide  is Narayan's most popular book, partly because of its witty presentation of Raju's character and partly because of its intricate narrative technique of the first-person account of Raju alternating with the omniscient narrator's presentation of the lovable rogue who becomes unwittingly a hero. The novel is also memorable because of its presentation of Rosie, who grows in stature throughout the work: she begins as a bored housewife who enters into an adulterous relationship with Raju, but by the time the novel ends, she has become a classical dancer of repute.

Typical of the praise heaped on the novel and its writer is the comment made by Anthony West in  The New Yorker  (19 April 1958): " The Guide  is the latest, and the best, of R. K. Narayan's enchanting novels about the South Indian town of Malgudi and its people. . . . It is a profound statement of Indian realities."  The Guide  won India's highest literary prize, the Sahitya Akademi Award, in 1960. The novel was also made into a highly popular movie in 1965 that made Narayan even more famous in India. However, he disapproved of the script and distanced himself from it because he felt it had vulgarized his work.

Narayan followed  The Guide  with another triumph:  The Man-Eater of Malgudi  (1961). It is the story of Nataraj, an amiable and docile printer of Malgudi, who encounters Vasu, a taxidermist from outside the town who takes over Nataraj's attic to use it as a base for his grisly profession. Vasu is brisk, powerfully built, egotistical, and totally indifferent to the community's values. Narayan implies in his narrative that Vasu is a  rakshasha,  the type of demon who challenged the gods themselves. Nataraj's assistant Sastri, well-versed in Indian myths, even views Vasu as Bhasmasura, the demon of Indian myth who blights everything he touches, defies the heavens, and puts humanity into peril. But Bhasmasura is also an overreacher whose pride results in self-annihilation. In the novel, too, Vasu self-destructs when he inadvertently kills himself while squashing a mosquito that had landed on his forehead.

But  The Man-Eater of Malgudi  is also the story of its narrator, Nataraj, who is initially a passive character. He prefers to spend his time in the first part of the novel by chatting with his friends but is transformed by his contact with Vasu and the latter's intimidating ways into taking the offensive to contain "the man-eater of Malgudi." Thus, in the concluding parts of the novel Nataraj finds himself acting more like Vasu. He even wonders if in a fit of aggression he had been instrumental in cornering the taxidermist, perhaps thereby forcing himself to self-destruct.

Narayan presents the Vasu-Nataraj relationship against the backdrop of everyday life in Malgudi and a cast of idiosyncratic minor characters. His skill in depicting life in a midsize provincial town of India is evident.  The Man-Eater of Malgudi  is also a funny novel and reveals Narayan's delight in the human comedy. Narayan's technique in the work is an unobtrusive one as he takes readers from the tranquil opening to the frenzied climax of the story. Like  The Guide , this book was received enthusiastically on publication. Donald Barr commented in  The New York Times Book Review  (12 February 1961): "it is classical art, profound and delicate art, profound in feeling and delicate in control."

Narayan's next novel,  The Vendor of Sweets  (1967), once again appears to set up tradition against disruptive Western influences. V. S. Naipaul sees the novel as characteristic of Narayan's work because of its theme: "there is a venture into the world of doing, and at the end there is a withdrawal." Tradition and the unchanging Indian world is here represented by Jagan, the vendor of sweets, and modernity by his son Mali, who has come back from America with Grace, a Korean American woman, and innovative business schemes. The novel is set in the 1960s, but Jagan keeps thinking about India's Gandhian past and his role in it as an activist inspired by the Mahatma. Jagan, a traditionalist by instinct, also treasures, paradoxically, mementos of the Raj as well as Indian greats, valuing the works of William Shakespeare as well as those of Rabindranath Tagore.

As Ashok Berry has stressed, Narayan is setting up an opposition between tradition and modernity in a way that will invert "the dominant hierarchy." Thus, the novel concludes with Jagan retreating from the world of Mali and Grace, but he does not forget to take his checkbook with him. Jagan also approves of Grace and is only upset because his son had backed off from his promise to marry her. While Naipaul says that the novel concludes with Jagan's withdrawal from modernity, Berry emphasizes Narayan's complex perspective on the novel when he says that it is "precisely about accommodating imperfection and hybridity. By destabilizing ideas of purity, it paves the way for different conceptions of identity."

Although not as successful as either  The Guide  or  The Man-Eater of Malgudi ,  The Vendor of Sweets  reveals Narayan's gift for characterization, as Jagan is a complex creation: comic, shrewd, and vain but also an idealist and a caring father whose loneliness attracts the reader's compassion. The portrait of Mali and his scheme of marketing a storytelling machine is Narayan's way of satirizing harebrained business ideas and uncritical acceptance of Western values, but Grace is portrayed with sympathy and understanding. The novel, typically, reveals the changing world of Malgudi, where cross-cultural exchanges take place even as the traditional values of the  Bhagavad Gita , the Hindu sacred text that is Jagan's constant companion, continue to be a guide for people of his generation.

Narayan's subsequent novel,  The Painter of Signs  (1976), is one of his most impressive longer works of fiction. It echoes many of Narayan's earlier novels in its themes as well as its structure. The plot--about an obsessive young man, Raman, who pursues Daisy, a woman dedicated to easing overpopulation, the national issue of the 1970s--echoes  Waiting for the Mahatma , which was about Sriram's single-minded pursuit of the zealous Gandhian, Bharati. Throughout the novel Raman broods on philosophical as well as topical issues, as did Srinivas of  Mr. Sampath . Like Rosie of  The Guide , Daisy is a modern woman, not afraid of transgressing conventional notions of morality in pursuit of her vocation. However, Daisy is even more independent minded than Rosie, for in the end she makes a clean break from Raman, something Narayan's earlier women seemed unable or unwilling to do. As Sadhana Allison Puranik points out, such a "radical overturning of convention" indicates that there is a subversive element in Narayan even though it coexists with "his love of traditional elements of Indian life and art." Puranik also stresses the political dimension of the novel and its contemporaneity: connecting Daisy's fanaticism about family planning with Indira Gandhi's excesses in enforcing it in India, Puranik thinks that "Narayan implicitly criticizes the attitude of cultural extremism apparent in the government's domestic policies."

As if to mark the change in Indian mores, the novel is much more explicit about sexuality than Narayan's other longer works of fiction. Also, Narayan seems more reform minded in this novel than in his earlier works. Daisy appears to have no inclination to be like Savitri from  The Dark Room , and Narayan shows her leaving conventional notions of womanhood behind altogether. While it is too much to say that Narayan endorses Daisy's independence totally or upholds the ideology of the single woman or family planning unambiguously, the novel accepts her modernity to a great extent and shows her ideas gaining acceptance among quite a few women even when they conflict with other upholders of tradition.

Narayan's twelfth novel,  A Tiger for Malgudi  (1983), is distinctive in having a protagonist who is a tiger. He is called Raja, and he narrates the story of the spiritual changes he undergoes. In the introduction to the novel, Narayan writes that the idea of adopting such an unusual point of view came to him when he saw a tiger accompanying a sadhu in the Hindu Kumbh Mela, a major Hindu festival. What struck him in particular was that the tiger was not on a leash, and that the holy man accounted for the tiger's freedom by saying "they were brothers in previous lives." This encounter led Narayan to think about the tiger's perspective on life--which, he would have readers believe, evolved not unlike that of human beings. The book presents details of Raja's life as a cub, his brashness as he arrives at his physical peak, his capture and conversion into the star attraction of a circus, his "elevation" into a celebrity after being cast in movie roles, his escape from captivity, and his adoption by an ascetic. This sagacious man's views give Raja insight into life and death, making him appreciate that "separation is the law of life right from the mother's womb" and thus has to be accepted as part of God's plans for all animals. He also accepts the notion that one should free oneself from worldly attachments. Raja ends up in a zoo but appears to have achieved enlightenment and a mature acceptance of life. Because the protagonist is a tiger, the novel often strikes a comic note.

A Tiger for Malgudi  was the last of Narayan's novels to receive wide critical attention. But it got mixed reviews, and a few critics recorded their disappointment with it. Writing in  The New York Times Book Review  (4 September 1983), for example, Noel Perrin noted that the book is "distinctly not drenched with humanity" and that "most of the flavor of Malgudi is missing." Similarly, Carlo Coppola observed in a review in  World Literature Today  (Spring 1984) that although there are good things in the book, "in the last analysis . . . the novel falls short of Narayan's best achievements (viz.,  The Financial Expert ,  The Guide ,  The Man-Eater of Malgudi ) because the author fails to convince us of the final phase of Raja's quest."

Narayan was eighty years old when he published his next novel,  Talkative Man  , in 1986. This story is another take on a theme that fascinated him throughout his career as a novelist: the fate of the long-suffering Indian wife. Although Malgudi has changed, the wife of this tale, Sarasa, continues to suffer because of her indifferent and philandering husband, the confidence man Rann, who claims to be working for the United Nations. She is financially independent, but she cannot part from him despite his obtuseness and tendency to abandon her. In her determination to stick to him, she is, in some ways, like Savitri of  The Dark Room.  The novel is of interest because of the titular character, the talkative man, a persona Narayan has used in many of his short fictions to reveal his delight in raconteurs and their garrulousness, which at times makes them sound comically gullible.

Narayan published his last novel,  The World of Nagaraj  (1990), four years after  Talkative Man . The title character follows a holy man who has renounced the world and is bent on leaving it behind, freeing himself from the world of the senses so that he can concentrate fully on God. Nagaraj, too, appears to be preparing himself for forsaking earthly attachments and welcoming death. Nevertheless, Nagaraj continues to be dragged back into the quotidian because of his spoiled nephew Tim, who has a nose for trouble and involves Nagaraj in his problems. This entanglement makes him unable to renounce the world effectively, putting him in contrast with the mythical sage Narada, who has given up all earthly desires for the benefit of humanity at large.

The last long work of fiction that Narayan published in his lifetime is  Grandmother's Tale  (1992). It is essentially a novella, but the author himself points out in an explanatory note that it is a work located in "the borderline between fact and fiction, between biography and tale," and between family history and quest narrative. In it Narayan retells his great-grandmother's search for her husband, who had disappeared after telling her "laconically" one day, "I am going away." Re-creating the world of nineteenth-century India, where women were forced to lead much more confined lives than characters such as Sarasa of  Talkative Man , this novel shows the triumph of Narayan's great-grandmother's love and the indomitable spirit that led her to her husband and allowed her to end her life happily.

Among Narayan's strengths as a novelist are the economy of his storytelling and the skill with which he manipulates his plot so that events that complicate the lives of his central characters are resolved within a couple hundred pages. Narayan is also a master of shorter forms of fiction, and he brought out five collections of short stories, most of them published first in the Madras newspaper  The Hindu . They cover the same territory as the novels; indeed, the first collection was called  Malgudi Days  (1943). The stories of the early collections are slight pieces and usually reportorial in style, lacking the plotted quality of the novels. Some are anecdotal or no more than character sketches. The stories of the later collections are longer and more intricately built. Usually they show people as fallible, eccentric, or merely amusing. Some are about animals, and some present children and deal with the theme of growing up. Most often Narayan uses the short story to depict ordinary people in everyday situations with a light touch but also in a manner that reminds readers that his mission is to be the chronicler of Indian life. He registers the poverty of Malgudians and occasionally ventures into social criticism. A few of the stories are satirical in tone, and there is even a touch of the absurd in one or two of them. As in the novels, the dominant mood is of mild irony; but the best of them can be funny, as is the case with "A Horse and Two Goats," a hilarious account of cultural misunderstanding.

Narayan's collections of short tales include the volume  Gods, Demons, and Others  (1964). These stories are, as the title indicates, attempts to re-create Indian myths. They show Narayan adopting the role of the traditional storyteller who regales his audience with tales about a supernatural world that is of interest to mortals and that combines instruction with enjoyment. Narayan evidently enjoyed this role and found that modern audiences delighted in his versions; he thus went on to create his own versions of India's great epics, the  Ramayana  and the  Mahabharata . These volumes, published in 1972 and 1978 respectively, complement the world of Malgudi portrayed in the novels and the short fiction, in which his situations and characters often allude to the Hindu holy books and legends. Patrick Swinden has noted that what Narayan's narrator says about the sage Narada in  The World of Nagaraj  could also be applied to the author: he "floats with ease from one world to another . . . carrying news and gossip, often causing clashes between gods and demons, demons and demons, and gods and gods, and between the creatures of the earth."

Any survey of Narayan's career should also take note of his miscellaneous writings and essays on literature, for as a practicing journalist as well as an author often invited to present his thoughts on writing and art, he published several collections of nonfictional prose. Essays such as his "Introduction to  The Financial Expert, " collected in  A Story-Teller's World , and "Misguided Guide," reprinted in  A Writer's Nightmare  (1988), give readers the contexts of his novels. Essays such as "Mysore City" (in  A Story-Teller's World ) furnish them with details that are helpful in understanding the Malgudi setting. They also remind readers how close his novels are to the South Indian world he knew so intimately. Other essays provide information about his views on storytelling, the problems facing the Indian writer, the status of English in India, East-West encounters, and his delight in everyday life and simple events as well as his eye for the oddities of people. His two extended works of nonfiction are his memoir,  My Days , and  My Dateless Diary , in which he describes his travels in America and encounters with Americans during a nine-month visit sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Narayan received some major awards for his work. In addition to the Sahitya Akademi Award for  The Guide , the Indian government conferred on him the Padma Bhushan, one of India's leading awards, in 1964 for his overall achievement. He was also decorated with the Royal Society's Benson Medal in 1980 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature that year. He was a visiting professor at Michigan State University and Columbia University in the United States. Major Indian universities and the University of Leeds conferred honorary degrees on him.

Narayan died on 13 May 2001. Viewing Narayan's achievement in perspective at the beginning of the twenty-first century, one can see that he has been one of the leading Indian writers in English of the previous century. The first wave of Indians writing in English, comprising men and women such as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Raja Rammohon Roy, Michael Modhusudhan Dutt, and Toru Dutt, had little or no impact on English literature. Many of these writers failed in using a language that was not their own and soon switched to their mother tongues. The second generation were the true pioneers: writers such as Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, and Kamala Markandaya managed to attract a limited but devoted following not only in India but also all over the world. A few of them, Chaudhuri and Narayan for instance, even managed to win major literary awards overseas. Significantly, of these writers, Narayan was the only one ever considered for the Nobel Prize in literature. His fame continued to increase decade by decade, and his work continued to be published both in India and the West throughout the twentieth century.

The arrival of the third wave of Indian writers in English with Salman Rushdie's  Midnight's Children  (1981), a wave that swept forward writers such as Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Anita Desai, and Arundhati Roy, did not distract attention from Narayan but rather showed the solidity of his achievement. His peers as well as successors have been quick to acknowledge Narayan's contribution to Indian writing in English. In an essay written at Narayan's death, the distinguished Indian poet Dom Moraes called Narayan "by far the best writer of English fiction that his country has ever produced." Pankaj Mishra, one of the Indian writers in English now making their mark globally, declared in another eulogy that Narayan was "a precursor I could look up to and learn from, and I can't overestimate the importance of this to a young writer working in a tradition that doesn't seem very coherent."

With only Greene's help, but without the flamboyance of Rushdie or the benefit of postcolonial theory, R. K. Narayan carved a niche for himself nationally and internationally. For more than half a century he produced quality work despite writing in a language not his own while staying in India almost all the time. Mishra's  New York Review of Books  obituary survey can be invoked again to sum up Narayan's achievement: his "unmediated fidelity" to his world and "instinctive understanding of it" make him "a more accurate guide to modern India than the intellectually more ambitious writers of recent years."

Alam, Fakrul. " R. K. Narayan ."  South Asian Writers in English , edited by Fakrul Alam, Gale, 2006.

FURTHER READING

From: Alam, Fakrul. "R. K. Narayan."  South Asian Writers in English , edited by Fakrul Alam, Gale, 2006.

• Susan Ram and N. Ram,  R. K. Narayan: The Early Years: 1906-1945  (New Delhi: Viking, 1996).
• Ashok Berry, "Purity, Hybridity and Identity: R. K. Narayan's  The Vendor of Sweets, "  WLWE,  35 (1996): 51-62.
• A. Hariprasana,  The World of Malgudi: A Study of R. K. Narayan's Novels  (New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1994).
• Pankaj Mishra, "The Great Narayan,"  New York Review of Books,  22 February 2001: 44-47.
• Dom Moraes, "A Gentle Enchantment," www.tehleka.com.
• V. S. Naipaul,  India: A Wounded Civilization  (New York: Vintage, 1976).
• Sadhana Allison Puranik, " The Painter of Signs:  Breaking the Frontier," in  R. K. Narayan: Contemporary Critical Perspectives,  edited by Geoffrey Kain (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993), pp. 125-140.
• Patrick Swinden, "Gods, Demons and Others in the Novels of R. K. Narayan," in  R. K. Narayan: An Anthology of Recent Criticism,  edited by C. N. Srinath (Delhi: Pencraft International, 2000), pp. 36-49.
• William Walsh,  R. K. Narayan: A Critical Appreciation  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).

From: James Overholtzer. "R. K. Narayan."  Contemporary Literary Criticism , edited by Jennifer Stock, vol. 452, Gale, 2020.

Bibliography

• Rao, Ranga. “Bibliography”.  R. K. Narayan: The Novelist and His Art , Oxford UP, 2017, pp. 293-309. In the absence of a dedicated, full-length Narayan bibliography, the primary and secondary listings included in Rao’s biography are the most useful resources.
• Ram, Susan, and N. Ram.  R. K. Narayan: The Early Years, 1906-1945 . New Delhi, Viking, 1996. The definitive biography of Narayan’s early life, which benefits from the authors’ friendship with the writer in his later years. The details of Graham Greene’s role in the publication of Narayan’s first novels and Narayan’s response to the tragic death of his young wife are particularly interesting. There is no comparable biography of the later years.
• Alam, Fakrul. “Plot and Character in R. K. Narayan’s  Man-Eater of Malgudi : A Reassessment”.  ARIEL , vol. 19, no. 3, 1988, pp. 77-92. Argues against views of  The Man-Eater of Malgudi  which see it as a struggle between good and evil, as represented by the protagonist, Nataraj, and his supposedly demonic adversary, Vasu. Alam suggests to the contrary that their characters overlap, a narrative feature that can be interpreted in terms of the Freudian concept of identification.
• Albertazzi, Silvia. “The Story-Teller and the Talkative Man: Some Conventions of Oral Literature in R. K. Narayan’s Short Stories”.  Commonwealth Essays and Studies , vol. 9, no. 2, Spring 1987, pp. 59-64. Interprets Narayan’s short fiction as having affinities with the traditional Indian tales of the puranas, including a dialog form and an episodic structure. Albertazzi argues that his use of the figure of the Talkative Man as a narrator for six of the stories in  An Astrologer’s Day, and Other Stories  (1947) is designed to make readers feel they are participating in an oral tale.
• Almond, Ian. “Darker Shades of Malgudi: Solitary Figures of Modernity in the Short Stories of R. K. Narayan”.  Journal of Commonwealth Literature , vol. 36, no. 2, 2001, pp. 107-116. Investigates what it was in Narayan’s work that led Greene to feel he had found a ‘second home’ there. Almond identifies recurring patterns in a broad spectrum of Narayan’s short fiction before focusing on the ambiguous representation of modernity in stories where it comes into dialog with tradition. He concludes that the darkness underlying Narayan’s comic elements may well have struck a chord with Greene’s sense of “loyalty” to unhappiness.
• Bery, Ashok. “‘Changing the Script’: R. K. Narayan and Hinduism”.  ARIEL , vol. 28, no. 2, 1997, pp. 7-20. Argues that seeing Narayan as a Hindu traditionalist gives a distorted picture of his work and needs qualification. Bery claims that some of Narayan’s novels explore the limitations and contradictions in Hindu worldviews.
• Chew, Shirley, “A Proper Detachment: The Novels of R. K. Narayan”.  Southern Review , vol. 5, no. 2, June 1972, pp. 147-159. Discusses a wide range of Narayan’s novels, from  The Bachelor of Arts  to  The Vendor of Sweets.  Chew contends that in Narayan’s early novels, his protagonists self-consciously strive to achieve a form of detachment that accords with traditional Hindu wisdom, but she notes that this can be contrived. In later novels, Chew observes, the theme of detachment is more dramatically realized through lived experience.
• Greene, Graham. “Introduction”.  The Bachelor of Arts , London, Thomas Nelson, 1937, pp. v-x. Relates how Greene first became aware of Narayan and praises him for conveying a sense of essential Indianness, for populating Malgudi with memorable characters, and for combining sadness and humor in a manner reminiscent of Anton Chekhov.
• Naipaul, V. S.  India: A Wounded Civilization . Alfred A. Knopf, 1977. Argues that Narayan’s novels are “religious fables” about the Hindu doctrine of karma, which he views as a quietist philosophy, rather than the purely social comedies he originally had assumed. Naipaul’s discussion focuses on  Mr. Sampath  and  The Vendor of Sweets.  [Excerpted in  CLC,  Vol. 28.]
• Narayan, R. K. “The World of the Story-Teller”.  A Story-Teller’s World: Essays, Sketches, Stories , Penguin, 1989, pp. 3-9. Discusses the role of the storyteller in Indian village communities. Narayan casts light on his own narrative practice. He sees the figure as an oral repository of ancient Hindu wisdom, a man who conserves the legends and myths of the Vedas and tells tales from the Sanskrit epics that embody universally valid archetypes. Narayan comments that demons always carry the seeds of their own destruction, a remark that has particular resonance for his novel  The Man-Eater of Malgudi.
• Rao, Ranga. “Enchantment in Life:  Mr. Sampath  and the Naipaul Enigma”.  R. K. Narayan: The Novelist and His Art , Oxford UP, 2017, pp. 89-119. View Narayan’s novels as guna comedies, in which the three basic qualities of human nature (gunas) determine the behavior of people. Rao interprets  Mr. Sampath  as a transitional work, in which the central characters, Srinivas and Sampath, represent two of these personality types: the  sattvic  (idealistic) and the  rajasic  (worldly). He argues that the creative ambivalence of the style embodies the novel’s moral pluralism and rebuts Naipaul’s reading of the novel.
• Sankaran, Chitra. “Patterns of Storytelling in R. K. Narayan’s  The Guide ”.  Journal of Commonwealth Literature , vol. 26, no. 1, 1991, pp. 127-150. Demonstrates the extent to which  The Guide ’s structure incorporates many components of the Sanskrit  katha,  or oral tale, into the novel form. In so doing, Sankaran moves away from interpretations of the novel that cast it as a gentle satire of Hindu systems of worship.
• Thieme, John. “The Cultural Geography of Malgudi”.  Journal of Commonwealth Literature , vol. 42, no. 2, 2007, pp. 113-126. Disputes the frequently held view that Narayan’s Malgudi is a metonym for a quintessential, timeless India. Thieme suggests instead that it is a contested site, torn between older conceptions of “authentic” Indianness and contemporary views that stress the inescapability of change in the face of modernity. Thieme focuses on heterotopias in  The English Teacher, The Financial Expert,  and  The Painter of Signs.
• Walsh, William.  R. K. Narayan: A Critical Appreciation . New Delhi, Longman Group, 1971. Typifies criticism on Narayan that, following Greene, sees the author’s work as embodying a spirit of authentic Indianness. Despite this, Walsh analyzes Narayan in relation to canonical English texts and pays little attention to elements that are specifically Indian.

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• General Knowledge /

RK Narayan: Biography, Books, Awards & Works

• Updated on  
• Jul 25, 2024

RK Narayan Biography: Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami, popularly known as RK Narayan (1906 – 2001), was a celebrated Indian novelist and writer, who was best known for his works set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. In his career, he published nearly over two hundred short stories, fourteen novels, a memoir, two plays, two travel books and many essays.  He was awarded Padma Bhushan as well as Padma Vibhusan for his extraordinary work in the field of literature. Scroll down to read further about the author RK Narayan’s life and celebrated literary works. 

Table of Contents

• 1 RK Narayan Biography
• 3.1 Education
• 4.1 Breakthrough and Famous Works
• 5 15 Popular RK Narayan Books in English 
• 6.1 Other works by R.K. Narayan 
• 7.1 Additional Honors
• 7.2 Key Achievements
• 7.3 Adaptations

RK Narayan Biography

First and foremost, let us take a look at the biography of author RK Narayan tabulated below: 

Source: Tribune India

RK Narayan: Birth, Early Life, and Education  

RK Narayan was born on 10th October 1906, in Madras (at present Chennai), Tamil Nadu during British rule in India. 

• His father, R.K. Krishnaswami Iyer, was a school headmaster, and his mother, Gyanambal, was a homemaker.
• He was one of eight children among six sons and spent his early years in the care of his grandmother and maternal uncle.
• Narayan was inspired by his grandmother for his love for storytelling.

Narayan attended many schools in Madras from Lutheran Mission School in Purasawalkam, C.R.C. High School, and Christian College High School. 

• He was an avid reader, enjoying works by Dickens, Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Thomas Hardy.
• Despite failing his university entrance exam initially, he spent a year at home reading and writing, eventually passing the exam in 1926. 
• He later attended Maharaja College in Mysore, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1930.
• RK Narayan got married to Rajam in the year 1933.

Also Read – Debendranath Tagore: Life, Contribution & More

Famous RK Narayan Works

He started his writing career after graduating in the 1930s with a degree of Bachelor of Arts (B.A Degree).  His first published work was a book review on maritime laws in 17th-century England. He then started writing short stories for a local newspaper, “The Justice,” in Madras, honing his storytelling skills.

Breakthrough and Famous Works

Swami and Friend: Narayan’s first novel, “Swami and Friends,” was completed in 1930 but faced numerous rejections from publishers. The story revolves around a boy named Swaminathan and his very interesting and entertaining school life events.

Did you know that many of R.K. Narayan’s works were based on the fictional village ‘Malgudi’ created by him? 

Malgudi Day: His short story collection, “Malgudi Days,” published in 1943, marked a turning point in his career, establishing him as a notable writer. His first novel ‘Swami and Friends’ describes the amusing activities of a schoolboy named Swaminathan and his gang and the daily life of the local people living there. This was later made into a serial named ‘Malgudi Days ‘ and this serial was telecast on ‘ DD National’. It was a popular television show which was loved by the people. The stories of Malgudi Days were so vivid that people felt connected to their own lives. 

R.K. Laxman was compared to the famous American writer and Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner’. William Faulkner had also created a fictional village in which Faulkner had described the small activities of real life. 

15 Popular RK Narayan Books in English 

The famous books by RK Narayan you might have come across or should definitely read once are: 

Narayan’s novel “The Guide” (1958) won the National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, the highest honour in Indian literature. His works, including “The English Teacher” (1945) and “The Vendor of Sweets” (1967), further solidified his reputation as a major literary personality.

Also Read – Who Is Meghnad Saha?

Some important essays written by R.K. Narayan 

• Next Sunday
• The Reluctant Guru
• A Writer’s Nightmare
• The Story-Tellers’s World

Other works by R.K. Narayan 

• My Dateless Diary
• The Emerald Route
• Gods, Demons and Others 
• The Mahabharata 

RK Narayan Achievements

The RK Narayan biography also covers the achievements seen in the Awards and honours won by RK Narayan. Some of them are – 

Additional Honors

• Sahitya Akademi Fellowship (1994) : Highest honour of India’s National Academy of Letters.
• Rajya Sabha Nomination: Recognized for his contributions to literature.

Key Achievements

• Created Malgudi: Narayan established the fictional town of Malgudi, a setting for many of his stories that resonated with readers.
• International Recognition: His writing introduced Indian culture and experiences to a global audience.
• Storytelling Mastery: Known for his captivating and insightful narratives.
• Publishing House : Founded Indian Thought Publications in 1941, promoting Indian literature.

Also Read – Amrita Pritam: Life, Poems & Awards

Adaptations

Several of Narayan’s works, including “The Guide” and “Waiting for the Mahatma,” were adapted into successful films, expanding his reach to a wider audience.

RK Narayan continued writing until his later years, his unique storytelling, relatable characters, and depiction of Indian life have made him an immortal figure in the literary world. He passed away on May 13, 2001, at the age of 94, due to cardiovascular issues, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inspire readers and writers worldwide. 

R. K. Narayan was a famous Indian author famous for his novels, especially those set in the imaginary town of Malgudi in South India. He was one of the most important writers in early Indian English literature.

His style is relatable and graceful, marked by genial humour, simplicity and a detailed scenario description.

Narayan was awarded many prestigious honours, such as the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature, India’s second and third highest civilian awards in 1963, and 1994’s Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest award from India’s National Academy of Letters.

Find More Interesting Reads Here!

This was all about RK Narayan’s biography. If you want to know more about other Famous Personalities then visit our General Knowledge page! 

Rajshree Lahoty

Meet Rajshree Lahoty, the writer behind insightful blogs on study abroad adventures and general knowledge trivia. Armed with a pen mightier than the sword (and a keyboard!), she navigates through the lanes of knowledge with a dash of research and a sprinkle of information. Join her escapades in solving the mysteries of the world!

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Biography of R. K. Narayan

R. K. Narayan, whose full name is Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayan (originally, Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayanswami), was born on October 10, 1906, in Madras (now known as Chennai), India. He is known as one of India's greatest English-language novelists, alongside Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. His father was a provincial headmaster and he had many siblings. He spent part of his childhood under the care of his maternal grandmother, who taught him arithmetic, classical Indian music, mythology, and Sanskrit. Narayan did not particularly like school, but he did love reading English literature, including Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and Arthur Conan Doyle. When he was 12 years old, he participated in a pro-independence march, for which he was reprimanded by his family. After initially failing the entrance exams, he entered university but decided against pursuing the Master of Arts, realizing that more schooling was not what he wanted. Instead, he took odd jobs such as writing for small journals and freelance literary work. Pieces he submitted to publishers in England were not accepted and he described the response as “cold, callous rejection slips, impersonal and mocking.”

Narayan’s breakthrough was with his first novel. Scholar Nandan Datta describes the process: “ Swami and Friends was completed and sent to publishers. It repeatedly returned. Narayan dispatched it yet another time and gave the return address as one of his friends in London. He wrote to the friend requesting the manuscript be tied to a brick and thrown into the Thames if it came back. It did. But the friend took it to his acquaintance Graham Greene, who was already an established author. Narayan received a telegram soon thereafter: ‘Novel taken. Graham Greene responsible.’” Narayan met Greene only once, in 1964, but the two of them corresponded for decades and became very close friends. It was at Greene’s advice that Narayan shortened his name.

In 1956, Narayan won a travel grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and said of his experience, “Finally I did break out of the triangular boundary of Madras, Mysore and Coimbatore and left for the United States, in October 1956.” He visited New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, and the Grand Canyon, and met Aldous Huxley, John Gunther, Greta Garbo, and more.

His first novel Swami and Friends (1935) and his second, The Bachelor of Arts (1937), are both set in Malgudi, a fictional town on the border between Mysore and Madras. Others set there include The Dark Room (1938), The English Teacher (1945), Mr. Sampath (1949), The Financial Expert (1952), The Guide (1958), The Man Eater of Malgudi (1961), The Vendor of Sweets (1967), The Painter of Signs (1977), A Tiger for Malgudi (1983), and Talkative Man (1986). He has also written five collections of short stories, including Malgudi Days , as well as multiple collections of essays, commentaries on the Indian epics, and a memoir, My Days .

Narayan was awarded the A.C. Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature in 1980. In 1981, he was made an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Narayan died on May 13, 2001.

Study Guides on Works by R. K. Narayan

The guide r. k. narayan.

Published in 1958, The Guide is a novel by Indian author R.K. Narayan set in his fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. It follows the life of an Indian man, Raju, as he evolves throughout his life to become one of the most prominent holy men in...

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Malgudi Days R. K. Narayan

Malgudi Days is a short-story collection by Indian writer R. K. Narayan. The book was initially published in 1943 in India by Indian Thought Publications. It was republished internationally by Penguin Classics in 1982.

The book follows the lives...

The Painter of Signs R. K. Narayan

The Painter of Signs (1976) is a novel by celebrated Indian author R. K. Narayan. It describes a tumultuous romance between a sign painter and a political activist.

The novel tells the story of a man named Raman, a perfectionist sign painter. He...

R.K. Narayan: Short Stories R. K. Narayan

If R.K. Narayan was to go by his given name, then the cover would be an appealing hodge-podge of letters; born Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanswami in 1906, Narayan quickly became one of India's most internationally-revered writers and was at...

Swami and Friends R. K. Narayan

Swami and Friends is an Indian book written in English published in 1935. The work was the first novel ever published by the famous Indian author R. K. Narayan. Narayan's friend, Graham Greene, recommended his manuscript to a publisher, and it was...

The Vendor of Sweets R. K. Narayan

The Vendor of Sweets is a novel by critically acclaimed Indian author R.K. Narayan. Set in India during the 1960s, It follows the life of a vendor of sweetmeats named Jagan as he tries to navigate a difficult relationship with his son Mali.

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RK Narayan Biography

RK Narayan was a famous Indian writer globally known for his fictional writings of Malgudi. He was born on the 10th of October,1906. In his long career, he published fourteen novels , over two hundred short stories, a memoir, two travel books, several essays, and two plays. He was among the first few Indians who started writing Indian literature in English.

He was awarded the AC Benson medal from the Royal Society of Literature, the Sahitya Akademi Award , the Padma Bhushan , and the Padma Vibhusan , third and second of India’s highest civilian awards. Swami and Friends, The Guide, and The Vendor of Sweets are some of his most famous books.

In this article, we will look into the biography of RK Narayan. Let’s explore.

Table of Content

RK Narayan Life Overview

Rk narayan – birth, early life, education, rk narayan career.

• List of RK Narayan’s most famous books

RK Narayan Achievements

• RK Narayan – FAQs

RK Narayan was born on the Tamil 10th of October 1906 in a Tamil Brahmin family in his grandfather’s home in Madras (Now Chennai) during British Rule in India . His father is R.K. Krishnaswami Iyer who was the school headmaster and his mother Gyanamba l was a simple housewife. He spent his early years of life with his grandparents in Madras and he was very much inspired by his grandmother’s storytelling.

Every new day his grandmother tells him a new fictional story. He was one of the eight children and second among six sons, with two daughters in the family. He has spent a significant part of his childhood under the care of his maternal grandmother, who instilled in him a love for storytelling and traditional Hindu values. He moved to Mysore to live with his family when his father was transferred to Maharajah’s College High School.

He gained his higher education from the Maharaja’s College High School in Mysore. He faced a setback by failing the university entrance exam in 1925. When he failed an exam then he took a break from college during that time he developed a strong passion for reading, devouring works by renowned authors like Dickens, Wodehouse, Conan Doyle, and Hardy. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in 1930, taking a year longer than usual.

He started his career in the 1930s after finishing his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from the Maharaja’s College, Mysore . He was passionate about writing fiction, Narayan’s first published work in the 1930s was a  book review . It focused on the development of maritime laws in 17th-century England, showcasing his diverse interests.

•  He then turned to  short story writing , contributing to a local newspaper, “The Justice,” in Madras. This period allowed him to hone his writing skills and gain experience in storytelling.
• While writing short stories, Narayan also dedicated himself to his first novel,  “Swami and Friends” , completing it in 1930. He faced numerous rejections from publishers initially to publish his first Novel.
• Despite the initial setbacks with his novel, Narayan remained determined. He continued writing short stories and published a collection titled  “Malgudi Days” in 1943 . This book marked a turning point in his career and from that he became recognised as a novelist.

Establishing His Literary (1940s onwards)

• “The English Teacher” (1945):  The success of “Malgudi Days” opened doors for Narayan’s debut novel, “The English Teacher,” in 1945. This established him as a prominent literary figure and solidified his association with the fictional town of  Malgudi , the setting for many of his future works.

RK Narayan Literary Career

• Novels:  He authored numerous critically acclaimed novels, including “The Guide” (1958) and “The Vendor of Sweets” (1967), further solidifying his position as a major literary figure.
• Short Stories:  He didn’t limit himself only to novels but continued writing short stories, publishing diverse collections throughout his career.
• Publishing House:   In 1941, Narayan established his own publishing house,   “Indian Thought Publications” , contributing to the literary landscape beyond his writing.

List of RK Narayan’s Most Famous Books

The key Achievements throughout RK Narayan’s life are as follows : Created Malgudi:  He established the fictional town of  Malgudi  as a literary landmark, a setting for many of his stories that resonated with readers due to its universal themes and relatable characters.

• RK Narayan’s writing played a significant role in introducing Indian culture, experiences, and emotions to a wider international audience.
• He was recognized for his masterful storytelling abilities, weaving narratives that were both captivating and insightful.

Literary Recognition Achievements – Awards

• Sahitya Akademi Award (1958):  India’s highest literary honour for his novel “The Guide.”
• Padma Bhushan (1964):  Prestigious civilian award by the Indian government.One of India’s third-highest civilian awards.
• Padma Vibhushan (1980):  One of India’s second-highest civilian awards.
• AC Benson Medal (1980):  Awarded by the Royal Society of Literature, reflecting his international recognition.
• Nominations and Recognition:  He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on multiple occasions and received numerous other awards and accolades throughout his career.

Some Key Achievements of RK Narayan

• He founded “Indian Thought Publications” in 1941 and  Contributed to the literary landscape beyond his writing by establishing a publishing house.
• He Authored “ Reluctant Guru ” in 1975  a non-fiction book showcasing his observations and reflections on life.
• Several of his works, including “The Guide” and “Waiting for the Mahatma,” were adapted into successful films, further extending his reach to a wider audience.

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FAQs on RK Narayan

What is the short biography of rk narayan.

RK Narayan was born on 10 October 1906 and passed away in 2001. In his long career he published fourteen novels, over two hundred short stories, a memoir, two travel books, innumerable essays, and two plays. His first novel was Swami and Friends (1935).

Who was the famous character created by RK Narayan?

The character “Swami and friends ” created by R K Narayan that lived in the city of Malgudi. Swami and Friends is a novel that was published in the year 1935. The book was originally published in the English language.

What are the achievements of RK Narayan?

Having a successful career of almost sixty years got R.K. a series of awards and honours including the AC Benson medal from the Royal Society of Literature , the Padma Bhusan and the Padma Vibhusan , third and second of India’s highest civilian awards.

What is special about RK Narayan?

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami, popularly known as R.K. Narayan, was an Indian writer globally known for his fictional writings of Malgudi. Also, R.K. Narayan was amongst the first few Indians who started writing Indian literature in English.

Which is RK Narayan’s first novel?

His first novel, Swami and Friends (1935), is an episodic narrative recounting the adventures of a group of schoolboys. That book and much of Narayan’s later works are set in the fictitious South Indian town of Malgudi.

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